Where it Began

May 29, 2012
By

Where It Began
Fiction
Ann Redisch Stampler
Reviewed by Cayli Young
Rated 4 out of 5 stars

When 17-year-old Gabby wakes up in a hospital bed, everything is foggy. No matter how hard she tries, she can’t remember her name, or the names of those surrounding her. Despite her confusion, she has no trouble remembering one name- Billy Nash. Perfect, beautiful, Billy Nash. He marked a turning point in Gabby’s existence. As Gabby starts to remember who she is, she also begins to remember the accident that changed everything…or at least the aftermath; Billy’s car wrapped around a tree, herself drunk and mangled on the side of the road with the keys somehow still in her hands. Her face is so badly bruised and cut that no one will let her look in a mirror, and her arm is so badly broken that it barely looks like an arm, but none of that matters to her because no one will tell her what happened to Billy.

 

To pass time in the hospital, Gabby begins to play scenes of how she could have possibly ended up in this situation. Replaying scenes from her two lives because to Gabby, there was a before, and an after. Before, when she was a disappointment to society, and after; after a summer makeover, and after Billy Nash finally noticed her and made her his girlfriend and nothing else matters. Even as the police start trying to talk to her and she realizes how much trouble she could be in for driving drunk, she barely cares because once she learns Billy walked away from the accident uninjured, all that matters is getting back to him and to her after.

 

What makes Gabby such a readable and relatable protagonist is her self-awareness countered by her blind love and adoration of Billy. From the beginning, she knows he notices her because of her new and improved looks and that his arrests and other misdeeds seem to disappear because of his family’s wealth and power. She’s so overpowered by his appearance and charms that she convinces herself he has fallen in love with her. Even as her problems stack up, even as painful truths about what kind of guy he is and the lies he told comes out, she still holds out hope that she heard wrong, misunderstood, or that somehow everything can get back to the way they were.

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