Som jag vill vara
by Katarina von Bredow

For the Young Adult and A-Z reading challenges.

Swedish
282 pages
Rabén & Sjögren
ISBN: 978-91-29-66699-1

First line: Det blev inte precis som hon tänkt sig.

Back cover blurb:
Arvid kommer till festen för hennes skull. Det pÃ¥stÃ¥r i alla fall Jessicas bästis Louise, och hon brukar veta. Med fjärilar i magen och dunkande hjärta beger sig Jessica dit, och visst, han är där! De dansar och pratar och det ena leder till det andra. EfterÃ¥t är Jessica rädd att han bara var ute efter att fÃ¥ henne i säng, men sÃ¥ är det inte. Arvid är verkligen den hon hoppats, och allt är sÃ¥ bra det bara kan vara. Ända tills mensen inte kommer som den ska…

Thoughts: I’ve read all of Katarina von Bredow’s previous books (well, except the two written for kids, rather than teens) and one of them is a favourite that I re-read whenever I need a good comfort book. Her later books have not been at all as good, but I still make sure to get my hands on anything new she’s had published. Som jag vill vara is her latest.

It tells the tale of Jessica, a girl of fifteen, who goes to a party where another guest is the guy she’s had a crush on for months. As it turns out, he quite likes her too, and one thing leads to another and they end up in bed together. She worries for a while that that’s going to be it for them, that he doesn’t want anything more. He does, of course, and everything is fine and dandy until her period is late. Everyone tries to get her to have an abortion, but she’s at first reluctant, later determined not to have one, and that’s what the rest of the book is about.

Everything is either black or white for the characters involved, it seems, and a lot of them come across as being rather preachy, which put me off the book a little. Jessica, the main character, feels very strongly about her point of view, but does bring up a good point at one time, which is something none of the other characters really do.

The ending is a pretty happy one, and maybe I am a cynic (actually, I am!), but I don’t feel that the happy ending is going to last. A year or two down the road, and everything is likely to be in shambles. I’m not hoping that it’s going to be like that, but it seems likelier than the other possibility.

Not one of von Bredow’s better books, then, which shows in the C rating. That it even ended up with a rating that high is because it was a quick read and I did get pulled into the story, even if I wanted to strangle most of the characters most of the time.