Up next is unsurprisingly, another Kelly Loy Gilbert book which my dumb potato self decided it would be a good idea to read over the summer and unsurprisingly (again) got traumatized! I really have to stop doing that to myself good lord. The beautifully traumatizing book I’m talking about is When We Were Infinite and the story follows Beth who’s entire world comes crumbling down when witnessing something private about one of her closest friend’s personal lives. Now, it’s all she can do to keep their friend group from falling apart. It’s clear she’s willing to go any lengths for her friends, but the question ultimately becomes how far is she really willing to go and how much of herself is she willing to give up for them? This book hurt. Like a lot. When my older sister read this, she told me she wanted to hate the main character so much because Beth reminded her too much of herself and when I read the book, I could see why. Beth’s emotions are a hot mess throughout the book. Being in her head was absolutely exhausting which is ironic because similar to my sister, a shit ton of Beth’s irrational feelings mirrored my own and that alone both frustrated and hurt me. I completely understood her standpoint at times; the desperateness to keep her friends close when it’s obvious that they’re all about to go on their own paths. I think that’s the one thing we tend to take for granted with our friends these days. I’m lucky enough to see them everyday and have several close people who care about me but that’s only because I’m still in high school and currently it’s going by in a blink of an eye. I feel like freshman year was literally yesterday but I’m quite literally halfway done with junior year already. That panicked feeling of losing her friends is something I can painfully understand, especially when she relied on them so heavily. However, Beth’s reconciliation with her own insecurities eventually help her to heal and accept the future with open arms in order to build a better one for herself. I was actually debating between two songs for this but I think the song Memories of Summer Rain by the group Weeekly fit pretty well with Beth and her beautiful character development throughout the book. The song’s lyrics offer a bittersweet reminiscing message and I think Beth would absolutely be listening to this song with a smile on her face remembering all the good memories she’s made with her best friends. Holy shit I wrote a whole ass essay for this book. If I had time I swear I would’ve written a whole ass post for this but I’m probably planning on retruamatized myself by visiting this book again so I might as well write one in the future though this basically covered mostly everything. I think. Well, this just goes to show how much this book absolutely destroyed me and now I think I need therapy.