You Ruined Everything

You Ruined Everything felt like a gut-punch and a hug all at once. If you’ve ever dealt with shitty parents, mental health struggles, addiction, grief, or just… life being too much sometimes, you’ll find something in Fern’s story that hits home.

The dialogue is so natural and funny, it often felt like I was eavesdropping on real conversations. And Fern herself, what a complicated, messy, honest character. Watching her literally burn down the place where so much of her pain began felt like this wild, cathartic dream. She gets to say things to her estranged mother that I never got the chance to say to mine. And weirdly, in her healing, I felt a little more healed too.

Reading this felt like stepping into Maggie’s heart. There’s this quiet brilliance in how she explores failure, purpose, love, and the weird sense that the world might be ending, or maybe it's just changing.

My only real nitpick? The few narrative jumps and POV shifts were a little jarring at first. But it was easy to get used to, and honestly, life isn’t linear either... so it kind of fits.

Definitely a book I’ll be thinking about for a long time.