Ask Me How I Got Here

Nine Kinds of Awesome

(Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through Edelweiss.)

Public School Kids Always Ask

How do you meet guys
if you go to an all-girls school?

Immaculate Heart Academy
is named for the pure love of God
that flows through Mary’s heart.
But here’s the real reason why
our logo is a hunk of dripping muscle:
five hundred girls in red plaid skirts.

Even if we brushed with garlic toothpaste
we couldn’t keep the vampires away.

###

Mary’s Parents

Sure, they tried their best
not to treat her any different.

What choice did they have?

After all, she was still their daughter,
and they had promised
God to love her no matter what
crazy shit her body could do.

###

The summer before her junior year of high show more school, Addie becomes pregnant and decides to have an abortion. In a refreshing twist, her parents and boyfriend are wholly supportive of Addie, and her decision: Nick accompanies her to the appointment, and mom and dad sign off on it without argument (Addie lives in Minnesota, a state that requires parental consent).

She isn't conflicted about her choice, but Addie does slip into a bit of a depression or malaise after the fact. Worried about disappointing everyone yet again, she mostly keeps "Hurricane Addie" to herself. She withdraws from Nick and loses interest in classwork. She quits the cross-country team - which was supposed to fund her college education - and starts spending her afternoons at Java Joes, so her parents are none the wiser. There she runs into Juliana, another former track star from Immaculate Heart Academy, who is dealing with her own capital-s Shit. And then, slowly, Addie finds her way back to normal: her new normal.

As much as I believe that abortion needs greater representation in popular culture, stories dealing with the procedure make me nervous: will they be too preachy? Anti-choice? Slut-shaming? Misogynist? But the synopsis for Ask Me How I Got Here looked fairly reassuring, and Book Riot's glowing review sealed the deal for me.

As it turns out, Ask Me How I Got Here is pretty effing great. Although Addie does withdraw after her having an abortion, she never second-guesses herself; she knows, 1000%, that it was the right choice for her. Yet there's no escaping society's conflicting views on abortion - especially when you attend a Catholic school. In lessons on compassion, Addie's forced to listen to her classmates' ideas of how women who have had abortions should react: with shame, guilt, and remorse. Addie feels none of this, though her peers' conservative leanings do force her to keep it a secret: she doesn't even tell her best friend and teammate Claire, which only adds to her feelings of isolation. It isn't difficult to imagine that Addie's experience might have been more positive - or at least neutral - if everyone around her was as accepting as her parents.

Ask Me How I Got Here is a novel written in verse, which I know some readers find gimmicky; but I enjoy the change of pace, and I think it works quite well here. Many of the poems are works of art - sly feminist masterpieces - on their own, and they all come together to create a lovely story worthy of multiple readings. You can fly through the book rather quickly, but why would you want to? These verses are meant to be savored. Addie's poems are even tied to the story's ending, which made my heart swell.

Also, there's a really great #WNDB twist that I won't mention because spoilers, but you'll know it when you see it.

http://www.easyvegan.info/2016/05/06/ask-me-how-i-got-here-by-christine-hepperma... show less

I really liked this one. A well done story, told through verse, about one moment that changed a young woman's life. I like how she soul searched and how the story was told in such a unique way. I thought the journey was interesting.

In the novel-in-verse Ask Me How I Got Here, Addie is a high school cross country runner at an all girls’ Catholic school who learns she is pregnant. She chooses to have an abortion. While her family and boyfriend are supportive throughout the process, Addie still deals with confusing emotions and changing relationships with her poetry. Heppermann uses poetry to set a frantic pace in the novel. The verses are all from Addie’s point-of-view and move from written notes and assignments to typed text messages. The novel deals with heavy themes for teens, including abortion, religion, sex and sexuality. Recommended for grades 10 and up.

I wanted read this because I'm drawn to the emotional stories especially ones that deal with teen pregnancy.

However going and I had no idea that it was actually written in poems. honestly I usually avoid books like this because for some reason it's harder for me to connect with the main character. and the more poetic and lyrical writing sometimes doesn't get through to me but for some reason I just wanted to read a little bit of this one to see how it went and I found myself finishing.

It's pretty short and I read it all in one sitting. I was able to really connect with the main character and understand what she was going through. the writing was in prose of course but something about her voice the way that she had this dark humor and show more this concise way of summing up what she's feeling I just kept reading.

It not only dealt with the pregnancy and her decision to have an abortion but also about her love of running and how she gave that up for a while because it just didn't feel the same afterwards. it also dealt with friendship there's the girl that's been in your life and run with her and then there's another one that also quit running and was dealing with her own stuff. it was also the musical and lyric aspect of it her boyfriend she was in a band and liked for her to write stuff for them. family was also present in this one her parents were disappointed of course but they were there for her and they took the news in stride and they tried to make her feel better

Bottom Line: Short but emotional story written in poems focused on life before and after an abortion. show less

This is a look at how teenager Addie’s decision to have an abortion has affected her life. Told in prose, it is a compelling look at how difficult this decision is and how it impacts a person’s life forever.

I’m a reader that loves free verse. I love Ellen Hopkins books and when Ask Me How I Got Here started, it sounded like an EH book so I was very excited and I even said so on a Goodreads status update when I started the book. I’m sorry to say that this story is pointless. It started off as if it was going to go somewhere and then it fell flat with nothing to go on. I feel like I wasted my time with this one.

As I mentioned, this story started so promising and then it plummeted right after. Addie was a character I had no sympathy for. She was awful most of the time and didn’t really care for anyone but herself. I was hoping for her to grow as the story went on, but she kept getting worse in my opinion. The rest of the characters were show more no better but I can’t really speak much for them since they didn’t make much of an appearance. And when they did, they didn’t impact me in any way.

One thing I love about free verse is the beautiful writing. I’m sorry to say this story lacked big time in having a great writing. I was left very disappointed on this end. As you guys know, I’m bad at DNF’ing a book but it came to a point where I wanted to stop reading and forget about this book. I couldn’t deal with it at all. It took me 8 days to finish a book of free verse that has 240 pages… That’s a lot for me.

Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this story. Sadly, I have nothing positive to say except that it has a very strong beginning but you all know what happens after.
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Review can be found on Latte Nights Reviews:
https://lattenightsreviews.com/arc-review-ask-me-how-i-got-here/ show less

Not the book I expected to read. But the one I needed to read.