My Love Letter to Sloppy Firsts

10 years ago, I was like any other teenager. I had good friends, I lived in a small town and I was surviving high school. I earned good grades, but was never the best in my class. I played some sports, but I was always the shortest or weakest on my team. I had lots of friends, but my crushes never noticed me. I was 16 and happy, but not always so.

Then, horror upon horrors, in the summer before my grade 11 year, my family moved me back to my childhood hometown. My high school grew from 300 to 1500 students and I was in a sea of unfamiliar faces. My grades suffered due to the change in school systems. My new teachers had a hard time remembering my name because of the hundreds of other students they taught. School sports weren't even worth trying out for because of the high level of trophy winnings and the new competitive nature that I wasn't used to. The friends I did make lived on the other side of the city and were no longer the quick walk or bike ride luxury that I was so used to in my old town. I came home every night from school and hide in my room, angry at my parents for destroying my life so close to graduation.

In late September of that same year, I was holed up in my sanctuary, mindlessly flipping through a teen-related magazine after enduring my usual 70 minute bus ride home. A bright green book cover caught my eye in the "Must Reads" section, describing a book titled "Sloppy Firsts." The three sentence review, followed up a four star grading, described the book loosely as a protagonist named Jessica Darling (side note: I'm a sucker for books with my namesake) who endures a year of high school of annoying friends, unrequited crushes and nosy parents after her best friend, Hope moves away.

That's so me, I thought. Well, kind of. I was more like Hope in this situation, but nevertheless, this was definitely a book I could relate to. On our next grocery trip into the city, I sought out the book and devoured it on my daily bus ride.

My happiness wasn't automatic when I read the book, it grew at a gradual pace of appreciation. I slowly began to realize that I wasn't alone in my loneliness. Jessica Darling's journals and daily musings were everything I was thinking, even if I hadn't realized it yet.

The most pivotal and painful scene in the entire book for me is when Jessica leaves the lunch table of her so-called friends and chooses rather to hide in the girl's bathroom for the remainder of the period, fogging up the mirror with her breath and drawing smiley faces. If Hope had been there, I wouldn't be here, she thinks and I knew exactly what she meant. It was so accurate at the time, it hurts still to think about it.

At the end of the book, Jessica receives a healing visit from Hope after their year apart. In reality, I got something much better. After seeing my struggles that year, my parents were sympathetic and allowed me to move back to my old town to complete my final year of high school and graduate with all my friends. If it wasn't for Sloppy Firsts and the writings of Jessica Darling, I'm not sure I would have gotten through that year in one, sane piece.

Sloppy Firsts has meant the world to me, along with the other remaining four books in the series. Never have I found a protagonist so aware of her flaws, yet so charmingly relatable as the same time. Her mistakes were once my mistakes and her triumphs have been celebrated alongside with mine. On more than one occasion in my life, I've gone back to re-read the entire series again and found similarly eerie parallels with her life and mine. By the time I reached the final book, Perfect Fifths, it became comforting to know that Jessica blossomed into a mature and understanding mid-20's adult and I realize that there is still hope (pun intended) for me yet.

Sloppy Firsts is a book for everyone who is or was once a teenager. It's for everyone who has moved away from their friends or had their friends move away from them. If you've wanted nothing more than to graduate and leave your small town for the rest of the world, you will relate to Jessica Darling. If your parents annoy you, you have bad skin, annoying siblings, insomnia, experienced a Valentine's epiphany, are fluent in pessimism, wit and sarcasm and are hyper-observant to your surroundings, this book is your best friend. Heck, even if you've ever secretly daydreamed that you might accidentally share a sweaty 5x5 closet with the person you are obsessed with and the trauma will bond your sexually (and otherwise!), then this is your forte.

Even if you don't think you will relate to this book, you will. It's been 10 years since the publication date, but except for the occasional Y2K reference, everything is still fresh, interchangeable and completely relatable. We were all teenagers once, we've all been there and even now, this book is around for those who still are.