The Me I Used to Be by Kristan Higgins

The Me I Used to Be by Kristan Higgins
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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Back in senior year, Audrey, Micah, Jasmine, and Beck were the Core Four: the lucky one, the beautiful one, the smart one, the sporty one. They had color-coded dreams, inside jokes, and a lifelong friendship they thought would last forever. But graduation night ended in a tragic accident, followed by the kind of silence that stretches for decades.

Now, they’ve returned for their reunion, each carrying a life that looks nothing like the glossy future they imagined. There are stalled careers, complicated marriages, outspoken adult children, and secrets that never fit into holiday cards. For one of them, a diagnosis of early-onset dementia turns the weekend into a ticking clock.

Across one unforgettable weekend, the Core Four must decide if their past can still change their future together.
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I have been a huge fan of Kristan Higgins's books since back in the Gideon's Cove and Blue Heron days, and she has long been one of my auto-buy authors. Therefore, when given the chance to read her newest novel months before its publication date, I jumped at the chance and placed my entire TBR list off to the side so I could devour it this afternoon. Higgins was once an author who gave us swoon-worthy men and strong FMCs in her series contemporary romances (always with the important canine sidekick thrown in), and they were always fun to read. However, over the last decade or so, her novels have become fuller and deeper, and while they are still romances at their core (and those canine companions are still a part of every story), they have a complexity that was not evident in those earlier stories.

The tone of Higgins' latest offering reminds me a little bit of her 2021 title PACK UP THE MOON, possibly because I recently reread it in audiobook form, in that it has as a central theme a scary medical diagnosis and revolves around its effects on a family/found family (one of my favorite tropes) group. Told through multiple timelines and multiple viewpoints, it traces the story of four friends as they experience first a tragedy in high school, then it's ramifications throughout their early adulthoods, and finally a resolution that is unlike anything they ever could have expected. This grabbed me from the first chapter, and I read it straight through in a very satisfying binge reading session, which is actually the way I read most of Higgins's books, now that I think of it. I am so thrilled that this author has a new book being launched out into the world, and I hope there will be many more where this one came from.

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