till i fall asleep

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by projectasiangirls

by projectasiangirls

title

Till I Fall Asleep

author

stereohearted

synopsis

(as copied from book)

Sawyer Lee is a senior. To others, it can be a time of nostalgia and nervousness. After all, senior year is the last year one gets to spend at home until they are shipped off to college. Sawyer Lee has lived in the same small town all her life, but she is different. Instead of feeling nostalgic and nervous, she can't wait. She can't wait until she finishes at the top of her class academically, and goes to her dream college. In her mind, she was born for that moment when she packs up and leaves what is in her opinion, a hellhole.

But when she doesn't get into her dream college and Everett does, she gets pissed. In her opinion, the arrogant, extremely smart guy who sits in the back of AP Euro and never pays attention but still manages to get better grades than her does not deserve to go to Yale. She does, not him.

So when a drunken fight at a party turns into a drunken one night stand, she realises that everything is about to change.

After all, you can't leave when the thing holding you back is a baby.

...

thoughts

This book. Oh my God. You know how I said Lies We Tell had the award for making me cry the most? Well, I apologize, but the award now goes to Till I Fall Asleep. (Yes, I know what you're thinking. Good grief, Mitsuki. Stop being so emotional. But I digress.) (Tessa would like to add on that she feels the same way.)

To be completely honest, I was not sure about this book at first. Coming from a rural part of Japan hadn't exactly led to many encounters with the issue of teen pregnancy and abortion. The Buddhist in me had me thinking "Well...we shouldn't kill the baby, right?" But Till I Fall Asleep gave me an entirely different viewpoint. I am now confidently pro-choice. (Of course, I am referring to abortions that occur when the fetus is 1-12 weeks old, not the last minute abortions that may occur just when the mother is about to give birth, unless the mother is at serious risk) As the author said, "if you say that a woman cannot have a right to determine what happens to her uterus, you are basically claiming that a corpse has more right to their body than a woman does." But I'm getting off topic here. This is a book review, not a political debate. The point I wanted to make is that although i wasn't exactly pro-life, Till I Fall Asleep completely changed my viewpoint and made me pro-choice. This is how powerful the book is.

The story centres around Sawyer Lee, an unconventional Asian girl. (three cheers for breaking Asian stereotypes of math geeks with small eyes and round glasses!) Long story short, Everrett Adams, the boy Sawyer hates, gets early acceptance into Yale and she doesn't. She gets sloshed at a bar, and things escalate until she wakes up next to Everett. Naked. Without giving too much away, most of the story centres around Sawyer's anger, frustration, and guilt about becoming pregnant. To her, the fetus is a curse. But through Sawyer's struggles, the author conveys the message that a baby should never be a punishment for sex, whether consensual or forced.

One thing I love about the story is that the author, stereohearted, is Asian. She's an amazing author, (and a Wattpad star + ambassador). It's really uplifting to see a fellow Asian girl get the recognition she deserves in what I feel to be a white-dominated platform. (of course, no hate toward Caucasian authors, but it's just my opinion that white authors are more prominent and celebrated on Wattpad and writing in general). I also love that Sawyer, the protagonist, is, as the short put it, an unconventional nerd. She is not the effortless, quiet, Asian nerd, whose defining quality is her brain, but rather a feisty and fiercely independent girl who has to work for her grades. The author also does a superb job of blending Korean culture into Sawyer's life, in a way that being Asian does not define her, but is still a part of her identity.

If you're looking for a sob-worthy book with complex characters and intriguing plot, Till I Fall Asleep might just be for you.

...

written by acciomii