So, two days ago I finished a book called The Girl I Wanted to Be by Sarah Grace McCandless.

I have read this book before but it was many years ago. I’m pretty sure I read it when I was on the verge of being a preteen, so that would’ve been fifth grade or sixth grade for me. Now I’m on the verge of finishing adolescence at the age of 18. It’s funny how reading this book has hardly changed anything. By that, I mean how there are some books that I read now as an eighteen year old that I read back when I was hardly an age, and well, I am able to comprehend the stories in a way I couldn’t back then. With this book, I think I comprehended it very well when I first read it. I feel like I’m typing a bunch of gibberish after saying all that, so let me explain the story.
The main character’s name is Presley. She’s just beginning high school and you’re at least to know how that’s like..

She has a pretty normal family structure: Mom, Dad, and a brother. She also has an uncle and cousin on her father’s side, and an aunt on her mother’s side. There’s also a grandma but I forget whose side she’s on. I think it’s the mother’s. She has 3 female best friends. Hannah, being the one she’s closest to.
Presley is a nice and observant girl. She’s a little insecure and self-conscious. But her family plays a big role in her life because she constantly idolizes her Aunt Betsi and Cousin Barry.
What’s splendid and ironic about these two role models of hers are there contrasts from one another.

Barry is entering his senior year in high school. He’s popular, great body, handsome, on the football team, has good grades, and has contributed a lot to the school him and Presley go to. Many girls like him and his closest friend is a guy named Jack.

Aunt Betsi finished high school but dropped out of college. She has a drinking problem and has been in and out of rehab and acquaint with mental health services. She’s been with many guys including one who was physically abusive. She smokes cigarettes. The book kind of implies too that she’s held at least a few jobs and has lived in a few different places. Last but not least, she’s absolutely obsessed with Elvis and that’s where Presley’s name comes from because Betsi was able to influence Presley’s mom on naming her.

As you can see, Barry is a genuine, energetic, and happy guy or so it seems.
On the other hand, Betsi has led a little bit of a crazy life and not always in such a good way. She tries to get her life together but also lets down the people around her. She can be a bit selfish and rude but she does have a heart. She’s just not the best at showing it. She loves Presley very much, however.
And so these are the people Presley idolizes and wishes so badly she can be. I mean Presley is fourteen and you’re kind of small at fourteen. You’re not so much into the world yet. You’re pretty limited in what you can do, what you can say, and where you can go. She feels a bunch of emotions about her life and the people around her which is a sign of beginning adolescence
Somehow though, Betsi and Barry secretly start seeing each other. This is when Presley’s world gets turned upside down and not for the better.
The thing that amazes me about this book is when Barry suicides. It’s still unclear as to why he chooses to suicide. You kind of have to make up your own reason for it. All I can think of is that Barry suicides because Betsi doesn’t want to see him no more because it’s not right for them to be together because she’s older and their families are related. Which makes sense. Then Betsi runs away to Las Vegas with a different guy and maybe that just really hits Barry hard?
I think the author needed to clear the reasoning up a little more because it makes me further from the book. Presley is a great, well-developed character. So it Betsi. But Barry is so unclear.
Of course it’s fine to be vague, but was Barry a very sensitive person? Did his age explain partly why he ended it? Because even when you’re 17/18, you’re extremely sensitive to things especially love and pain. I guess I just wanted to know more about Betsi and Barry’s relationship.
Overall, this is a good book and I enjoyed reading it. I wanted to keep reading chapter after chapter and never put the book down.
The nice part about this book is how it shows that there are people who we want to be so badly. We’d trade our life just to have their life or to at least have a life similar to theirs. But even though Barry and Betsi have led different lives from Presley, they’re not the perfect people that Presley has always envisioned them as. 
I like how at the end of the story, Presley seems to be more content and secure with herself.
I like also how even though Betsi has done some crappy things in her life, she was always a great Aunt to Presley which is why Presley idolizes her so much. Betsi really impacted her childhood and taught her stuff like how to ride a bicycle. It’s sad that when Presley is a teenager, she has to see Betsi more for who she is because it’s not as pretty and innocent as it was when she was a child.
At least, she understands Betsi more throughout the story and is accepting of her Aunt’s struggles.
I, personally, have been reading young adult fiction for such a long time. I love reading about adolescence because everyone has such a unique and different experience with it. And adolescence is this never ending branch of emotions, thoughts, incidents, etc. Its limitless boundaries are what makes me so fascinated and wanting to experience as much as I can of it.
I’ve never really written book reviews before but I might make more in the future. I like reading a lot, and there are so many books I remember by heart to this day because they have impacted and continue to do so.
I could’ve written more to this review but I’m doing this for my own fun and I don’t want to feel like this is an English assignment for school. I’m sure my reviews will improve though if I continue to write more.
I’m beginning a new book today, it’s actually a play called A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. I heard it’s a very good one. It’s important for me to read well-known plays because I’m a theater major in college.
Have a great Thanksgiving you guys.