Review: What Happens Next by Colleen Clayton

What Happens Next by Colleen Clayton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Goodreads summary:


Before the ski trip, sixteen-year-old Cassidy “Sid” Murphy was a cheerleader (at the bottom of the pyramid, but still...), a straight-A student, and a member of a solid trio of best friends. When she ends up on a ski lift next to handsome local college boy, Dax Windsor, she’s thrilled; but Dax takes everything from Sid—including a lock of her perfect red curls—and she can’t remember any of it.

Back home and unable to relate to her old friends, Sid drops her college prep classes and takes up residence in the A/V room with only Corey “The Living Stoner” Livingston for company. But as she gets to know Corey (slacker, baker, total dreamboat), Sid finds someone who truly makes her happy. Now, if she can just shake the nightmares and those few extra pounds, everything will be perfect... or so she thinks.


My review: 

I actually finished reading this morning, but I wanted to give myself time away and occupied with other things to let my feelings and the story filter through my brain before I tried to review the book on the whole.

Sid. Apart from the red hair, I was Sid in high school. Not fat, but pudgy enough to feel less attractive than the girls she hangs out with - and that's a scarydamn place to be. Not for the first time, I'm happy I went through it in the 80s. For all the bad hair and legwarmers, the threat that ultimately lead to her downward spiral wasn't there. Not yet.

The story itself. Hard as it was to read, it felt very real to me. The rationalizations, the way her mind twisted everything and the self-assurance that she had everything under control. Full codicil here - I've never suffered from an eating disorder, so I can't say whether this meshes with a real struggle. I just know that it read very genuine to me.

A word about Corey. Or a few. And lots of love. I'll admit to wondering where the connection was for him, and why he stayed after the two screaming outbursts, until the confession on the night of her birthday. Then it clicked and it wasn't as unrealistic as I'd first thought. The final fight, of course, when she completely snapped, had me crying. Crying for her, crying for him. The confession right before it.

I think what I loved most about this story is how...natural it was. From the way that one action, that one run, made Sid feel something not miserable and how that blossomed into her path to self-destruction. How she seemed to normal to everyone else, how she convinced herself it was fine, the small bursts of temper that hinted at the iceberg underneath. And I like that it wasn't wrapped in a pretty bow at the end. The story reaches its conclusion, the loose ends are tied up, but the reader is left to take these characters' futures onward in their own imaginations.

I, for one, hope for New York.