Old Enough
Haley Jakobson
A debut novel about a young bisexual woman who is pulled between a new sense of community and loyalty to a friendship she's outgrown Savannah Sav Henry is almost the person she wants to be, or at least she's getting closer. It's the second semester of her sophomore year. She's finally come out as bisexual, is making friends with the other queers in her dorm, and has just about recovered from her disastrous first queer "situationship." She is cautiously optimistic that her life is about to begin. But when she learns that Izzie, her best friend from childhood, has gotten engaged, Sav faces a crisis of confidence. Things with Izzie haven't been the same since what happened between Sav and Izzie's older brother when they were sixteen. Now, with the wedding around the corner, Sav is forced to reckon with trauma she thought she could put behind her. On top of it all, Sav can't stop thinking about Wes from her Gender Studies class--sweet, funny Wes, with their long eyelashes and green backpack. There's something different here--with Wes and with her new friends (who delight in teasing her about this face-burning crush); it feels, terrifyingly, like they might truly see her in a way no one has before. With a singularly funny, heartfelt voice, Old Enough explores queer love, community, and what it means to be a sexual assault survivor. Haley Jakobson has written a love letter to friendship and an honest depiction of what finding your people can feel like--for better or worse.
Wowowow I really do not know what I would do in Sav’s situation…so torn if it’s better to tell the Girlfriend or not
0Izzie and Sav’s friendship as kids is so tender and rare. I know that it can’t last with their differences & Sav already hiding her real personality…and I’m mourning it already 🥲
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My first impression was that the writing felt juvenile and performative/superficial, but I pushed through. By the end, I actually felt Jakobson had captured something essential about the SA survivor experience and communicated it with nuance and authenticity. I was invested in Sav's journey and found her actions + the relationships with her friends/found family super believable--such an accurate portrayal of college and messiness and growth that had me tearing up at parts.
04/4.5
This book has me in a slumpppp now because it just felt like found family and it put words to so many of the experiences I've had - it perfectly encapsulates the feelings/vibes of figuring out who you are when you seem to have a "home" self and a "college" self as well as the pain of friend breakups. I loved all the found family and just felt so seen by this book <3
* I didn’t admit to my mom that I had no idea how to be a part of my community, because there seemed to be a whole second step after coming out, and that was finding your people. (23%)
* Talking to Izzie had always been like pulling up a familiar cozy blanket, but recently it had started to feel newly constricting, like I shrunk it in the dryer and it felt sort of itchy. (47%)
* “It’s a lot to promise, you know? That you’re gonna be in the same friendship for your whole life.” “We do that romantically though. I mean that’s the basic idea, if you believe in marriage and stuff.” “Yeah, but that feels different,” Vera argued. “You can go into a romantic relationship knowing it can completely combust and leave you wrecked. You basically sign up for that. I feel like friends don’t talk about that happening.” “You promise forever,” I said quietly. (50%)
* “I don’t believe in justice. At least not in the way that it exists now. Because I think justice centers the abuser… how jail time should be longer and the prison facility should be stricter, and in none of these conversations have we talked about what the survivor is doing while they wait for their abuser to be held accountable. The conversation so quickly jumps to justice, but there is a difference between justice and healing.” (92%)
* “Izzie was happy, truly happy, and I was happy for her. I believed she was happy for me too. Or that she would be one day. Because I think the promises that we made to each other were never really about weddings or forevers. They were about a commitment to each other. A commitment to each other’s joy. I think we both believed that joy could not exist without us being together, but we’re old enough now to know otherwise. We’re old enough now to know that joy is not dependent on another person, no matter how much we want it to be. (98%)
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