Never Have I Ever

by Katie Heaney

[Leah]

When I spotted Katie Heaney’s memoir Never Have I Ever on Netgalley, I thought it sounded really great. I don’t read many memoirs, because they’re difficult to review; after all, you’re reviewing an actual person’s thoughts instead of a fictional story, but I was really intrigued to read Katie’s story and everything the synopsis tells you is very true: you will laugh, you will love Katie’s friends, and you’ll love Katie herself, she’s super funny, and I hope her next writing effort will be fiction, because the girl can write.

I was hooked pretty much from the off. In the first chapter I highlighted two sections that made me laugh out loud, and I knew I was on to a winner. The first sees Katie describing lighthouses, about how some of her friends are like lighthouses and boys flock to them, although that’s not how lighthouses work (they’re there to keep the boats AWAY from the marina, not to bring them in) and she says,

“If lighthouses really wanted to keep people away from rocky shores they’d be big audio speakers that played scary ghosts sounds.”

The second is even funnier, about the Bermuda triangle:

“It’s just that Bermuda doesn’t know how to handle itself when somebody sails into its territory, because that hardly ever happens. It hasn’t had much chance to practice, and it’s used to things going a certain way. So if a sailor DOES come around, it gets a little nervous, freaks the f– out, and creates a hurricane-like devastation in every direction around it. And then it gets embarrassed and sad and calls its friends.”

That makes me chuckle just reading it now. Sadly, I didn’t find any more quote-worthy bits the rest of the book, but those two right there made me laugh and totally endeared me to Katie and her life. The book pretty much follows all of Katie’s crushes from kindergarten right the way up to her life now, and it’s a fun look into how scary it can be to try and get yourself a boyfriend. It’s crippling, painful, and you’re not always sure whether they want to be friends, or more. It makes a refreshing change to meet someone who’s never had a boyfriend. All you ever hear about is how early people have boyfriends so it makes you feel sorta weird if you haven’t had that yourself yet, so it’s quite brave of Katie to put herself out there and announce that, and I totally cheer for her for doing it.

Katie Heaney is my new hero. I want to move to Minneapolis and be her friend, and be Rylee’s friend, too, and live with them in their apartment and just be AWESOME with them, because they are super awesome. I really enjoyed the book. Most of the anecdotes are fantastic to hear, although some are a little long, I will admit, but overall I thoroughly enjoyed the book and I’m so glad I read it. It was like having a sleepover with your best friends and spending the entire night gossiping and laughing, and chatting, very much a winner in my book!