The Girl He Used to Know by Tracey Garvis Graves

5*

Annika Rose, an anxious and socially-inept English major at the University of Illinois, prefers the company of animals and books except when she’s concentrating on a challenging game of chess. Jonathan Hoffman meets her after joining the chess club his senior year (having transferred from Northwestern). Over a series of games (“one of the ways we communicate best”) and evening escorts to her apartment, they fall in love. Despite the quirks and awkwardness that have led to her being bullied, assaulted and ostracized throughout her life, he is drawn to her ethereal beauty, her courage, and her straightforwardness and feels he can be himself with her. She falls easily for him because he’s the first man whose touch she can tolerate, who protects her, and who loves her without wanting to change her. Although they have plans to move to New York together after graduation, a tragedy delays her departure, and her subsequent postponements finally lead him to believe she no longer loves him, leaving both of them to navigate their lives alone.

Ten years later, they’re both living in Chicago and run into each other. He is divorced and working for a branch of a New York financial firm, and she has fulfilled her dream of becoming a librarian. After years of therapy, she’s ready to love him as he deserves and he’s looking for a fresh start. “The affection I once felt for Annika might have gone dormant for a while, but it roars out of hibernation and makes me feel better about life than I have in a long time.” They both know they’ll eventually have to talk about what drove them apart, but will they be able to rekindle their love before they lose the chance for good?

Graves does a brilliant job of getting readers into the mindset of a person with high-functioning autism (the diagnosis comes late in the book), and paints a frustrating and bleak picture of what it means to be different in a world that is threatened by anything outside the norm. The love between Annika and Jonathan and the kindness and protectiveness they share warms the heart. The chapters alternate between 1991 and 2001, a date which becomes shockingly familiar towards the end of the story. This novel is about unconditional love, endurance, and the lengths people will go to protect those they cherish. Share it with fans of Susan Meissner’s A Fall of Marigolds and Jill Santopolo’s The Light We Lost.

I received a complimentary ARC of this book from St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.