With abundant wit and heart, Jeneva Rose has written a magical and poignant love story about learning to love ourselves. The Girl I Was is one of those rare novels that will make you laugh out loud and tear up uncontrollably in succession while devouring it in one sitting.

Alexis Spencer thinks she has it all figured out. Even when life gets her down, she is never too far away from another inspirational quote to rationalize her failures and ignore all her problems. Her boyfriend tires of her deadbeat life and breaks it off, she’s lost her job, her closest friends are a distant memory, and her college debt is still as high as the day she left. In typical fashion, she blames the world for her problems, including her 18-year-old self who should have just tried harder and put their life on a better track. After feeling sorry for herself, Alexis goes on a bender to forget her problems and ends up blacking out, only this time she doesn’t wake up at home, she isn’t even in the right city, in fact, she isn’t even in the right year. She is back in her college town in the year 2002, and she thinks she’s been given a second chance to do things over, that is until Alexis comes face to face with her 18-year-old unruly self, who goes by the name of Lexi because it’s sexier . Right from the get-go, she has to get acclimated to life in the early 2000s again, which has its ups (no Kardashians) and downs (no cell phone). Once she meets Lexi though, the hard part truly begins. First, Alexis must convince her that she is in fact from the future. Then, she has to convince Lexi to let her live in her dorm with her as she has no place to go. Finally, they must learn to get along and come to terms with the fact that alone, they will never make things right, but together, they could change their life for the better.