As Many Nows As I Can Get Book Review

“Maybe my nows will be difficult, and lonely, and full of hurt. Probably they will. But not all of them. Mostly, they will be mine. Each now, a chance to acknowledge what is in front of me. To do my best. An inhale. An exhale. A chance.” Shana Youngdahl, As Many Nows As I Can Get. 

Reckless road trips, a whirlwind, biting summer romance and a deeply moving re-evaluation of a once-predictable and seemingly permanent future outline this tearjerker by Shana Youngdahl. Youngdahl poses the question: are we every truly prepared for life, no matter how much we plan and organize and practice? And when these plans fall astray, can we get back up and continue to write our own future? And then, maybe even more significantly, when we say goodbye- do we ever truly leave? If you want a scientific approach, full of particle and cell theories, Scarlett will let you know that if you plunge deep enough into life and leave your mark, there are infinite versions of you that remain. 

There are endless versions of you living at every moment, changing the path of strangers and true loves, multiplying the trajectory of each and every choice you make. The you in the past, running up the steps to school; you in the future, standing at the aisle. The you seen by friends, the you loved wholly by another. The parts of you that are boundlessly interconnected with everyone you meet, as a sister, a daughter, someone’s vibrant first love. You are here and there and living now a thousand times over, and you take as many nows as you can get. And sometimes, the now that you are in, stays now for just a moment longer, so you can see it clearly for what it is: you, breathing, living. 

Told in first person and through the guise of an AP English journal assignment, Scarlett's voice shines through as readers can physically empathize with the burning in her stomach as she struggles with choices surrounding Phoebe, the aching in her chest as she remembers her version of David, the love she lost too soon but who may have been lost long before she could assuage his troubles. Youngdahl succeeds in capturing the immensity  and inescapable feelings of teenage angst and worry, and their beliefs that choices made at eighteen seemingly write the course of a person's life without any means of alteration. 

Scarlett had plans: but she also had to live. Why can't a person do both? Why can't a teenage mother carry out her goals? Why can't she just simply be? The answer is: she can. Scarlett demonstrates that within the here and now, there are possibilities upon possibilities just waiting to materialize. The choices we make today may not be the choices we make tomorrow, but the least we can do is stay long enough to see them through. David might not have stayed, but nevertheless, he remains. In the bench off Mine Gulch, forever etched into the wood. In a painting at the Mexican border, always in Scarlett's mind, Cody's memory. The choices we make may not be the same for the rest of our lives, but it's comforting to realize that within each choice, a part of us lives on forever through its outcome. We are here. We are living our used-to-be's, we are living are yet-to-come's, and we are living our nows.