The Boy I Loved Before
A Novel
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Jenny Colgan's laugh-out-loud funny The Boy I loved Before is a new comedy about second chances.
If you could do it all again knowing what you know now...
While attending her best friend Sashy's wedding, Flora Scurrison realizes that this monotonous, nine-to-five, cookie-cutter life is exactly what's in store for her. While it might be okay for Sashy, it's certainly not what she envisioned for herself when she was sixteen.
So when her boyfriend proposes to her during the reception, Flora makes a wish to go back and do it all over again. The next morning she wakes up to find that she has been given the ultimate second chance--she's sixteen again. As Flora navigates school, first loves--new and old--and discovers what it really means to make adult choices, will she stay in her new body or try and find her way home?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The joys of being 16 are amply explored in this back-to-the-present comedy of second chances. At the start of Colgan's funny, fast-moving fifth novel, 32-year-old London accountant Flora Scurrison realizes that she can't bear the monotony of her job and her dependable boyfriend, Oliver. So when she sees her high school love, Clelland, for the first time in 16 years at her best friend Tashy's wedding, she can't help wondering what her life would be like with this globe-trotting hunk rather than with steady, unexciting Oliver. As Tashy cuts the wedding cake, Flora wishes herself 16 again and gets a chance to make new choices about love, career and risk. She can keep her father from cheating on her mother and be the coolest kid in high school not to mention ogle her svelte self in the mirrors at Top Shop. Strangely enough, though Flora is 16 again, only her parents have been transformed with her, and it's still the year 2003. Flora's interactions with a new Britney Spears generation of teenagers as well as with the grown-up friends who recognize her in her adolescent incarnation give the familiar plot a fresh twist. Cleverly constructed and often hilarious, this is an enjoyable addition to the annals of body-switching.