The Parts I Remember by A.K. Mills

[Lovely_Loreley]

Okay, I put this in "other fiction" because we don't really have a category for realistic fiction and I didn't feel like it fit anywhere else, so hopefully this works

Please tell me someone else on here has read The Parts I Remember? I went through it in two days and was just incredibly wowed by it. This is the story of Kelly Rockport, who goes to college and becomes somewhat of a party girl (well, "somewhat" might be an understatement). In the very beginning she and a friend are being pulled from a car accident but throughout most of the story neither Kelly nor the reader really know what happened. Her story is pieced together from bits of memory, so it jumps around a lot in terms of the timeline, but the way the author ties it all together makes it extremely powerful.

When I was reading this book it just felt so real - there were times I had to remind myself that Kelly was, in fact, a character and not some young woman actually telling the stories of her college years. (It is written in first-person, so that could be how it felt so powerful to me). I laughed, I cried, I sat in shock and had to take a deep breath before reading on. And even when things happened that were rather predictable, it didn't detract from the story or the heartbreak.

I would consider this a must-read for anyone starting or continuing college in the near future. Seriously. It's rough, it's raw, and it's incredibly emotional. It deals with drinking, drugs, and sex; it's a heavy read, not a light "I needed a good book to wind down and relax" type of thing. So be warned going into it that it is very dark, and not really meant for a younger audience.

I give this book 4 out of 4 stars. If you've read it, was it as powerful to you as it was for me? Or was it, as others have said, "disconcerting"? And if you haven't read it, go check it out!