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After losing his leg in a terrible car accident, Jonas Avery can’t wait to start over and go to college. 

Brennan Davis would like nothing more than to stay home and go to school, so she can keep her anxiety in check. 

When the two accidentally meet the summer before they move away, they’ll push each other to come to terms with what’s holding them back, even as they’re pulled closer to taking the biggest leap of all—falling in love. 

The Opposite of Falling Apart has more than 2.1 million reads on Wattpad.

The Opposite of Falling Apart

by Micah Good
Publisher: Wattpad Books
Release Date: February 25th 2020

Genre: Young Adult, Fiction, Contemporary

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45734867-the-opposite-of-falling-apart

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2PlOVsQ

B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-opposite-of-falling-apart-micah-good/1131555807?ean=9781989365069#/

Bookdepository: https://www.bookdepository.com/Opposite-Falling-Apart-Micah-Good/9781989365069?ref=grid-view&qid=1575839674167&sr=1-2

Google Books: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Opposite_of_Falling_Apart.html?id=dgN5xQEACAAJ&redir_esc=y

At Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, there is a giant hill, up which the back path from the Freshman dorms onto campus runs. In the summer, it’s a pain in the butt to climb. You’re sweaty and hot. If you can’t manage to ride your bike up it (and it’s so steep, it’s pretty much fifty-fifty that you can), you’re pushing the bike too, not just your tired feet. In the winter, it’s a glorious, glistening sheet of white whenever it snows (for the first day at least).

In The Opposite of Falling Apart, there is a scene where Brennan and Ambreen, and some others from their dorm, sled down the hill on plastic storage bin lids. It’s one of my favorite scenes.

When I went off to SIUE, I was an 18-year-old who had only gone sledding one other time in my life. Like Brennan, I was plagued by anxiety. Here I was, a never-really-gone-sledding, anxiety-ridden brand-new adult. I cooped myself up in my dorm room writing. I didn’t really talk a lot. I was a ‘party-pooper’. Because I was afraid all the time, I took the path of least resistance which was usually just doing…nothing much other than staying in my dorm. In The Opposite of Falling Apart, Brennan feels like she’s ‘failing at being a college student’. She doesn’t feel like she’s doing enough spontaneous ‘college student things’ to really be getting the most out of her university experience. That was me in a nutshell. Besides that, I was convinced that it was too late. My dorm had already split into its respective friend groups and its own little routines. I had my routine too: ramen, homework, write, sleep.

But on this one day, in the fresh snow, I felt almost giddy. It’s the effect fresh snow has on me. It’s the effect a canceled day of classes has on me.

I made the choice to go outside with some others from my dorm. I don’t remember who broached the idea. I don’t remember who got the lids. I just remember making the trek through thick wet snow, down the sidewalk, nearing the big hill. I remember trudging up it. I remember shoes that weren’t made for snow, pants that weren’t made for warmth, and a coat that wasn’t made for rolling in wet ice crystals.

“Your turn,” my classmates said, and I sat on a lid and I slid. In the story, Brennan feels free, and ‘normal’. I felt free, and maybe even a little bit normal too.

I have other spoiler-y scenes that I really enjoyed. I have other scenes where I even liked the writing a little better. But this one has a special place in my heart because it is a little piece from my own life. My college years weren’t easy. They weren’t the awesome years I know that some people look back on and reminisce about, missing them. They were mostly anxiety ridden, mostly when-is-this-going-to-be-over. There’s a reason I like this scene, and the reason is similar to Brennan’s: it reminds me of a good time. A good moment.  A moment when I wasn’t anxious.

If you’ve never gone sledding before, or if the chances at new experiences that you take are few and far between, get a plastic bin lid. Go outside when it’s snowy. Have a new experience. (The sled, this story…it’s a metaphor. Do the things. Do all the things you can. They make life beautiful.)

Micah Good has been writing since middle school. She’s been writing stories on Wattpad since the summer before her freshman year of college. Her stories have been featured, won a Watty, and she was invited to participate in Wattpad’s Paid Stories program. She currently lives in the midwestern United States, where she is pursuing a career in nursing. She loves dogs, naps and getting lost in a book.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18534337.Micah_Good

Twitter: https://twitter.com/micahintrepid

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/micahintrepid/

Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/user/titanically-