Back When You Were Easier to Love

Joy is a normal girl living in the small Mormon town of Haven, it's a bit of a culture shock for Joy because she comes from a college town in California. She didn't really enjoy being the "new girl" when she moved there a year before the story takes place, she was searching for an identity, because let's face it, it's really hard to be a teenager. So her identity became being Zan's girlfriend. When Zan goes to her hometown to go to college instead of finishing his senior year, Joy's identity disappears. It only gets worse when it appears that Zan doesn't want anyone at all to contact him, including Joy. She becomes obsessed with Zan and what he's doing and she has a really hard time concentrating on anything else. Zan's best friend, Noah, seems to start stalking her about this time. He claims that he wants to be "friends," but Joy doesn't want anything to do with that, she doesn't really know Noah and she doesn't really want to. But UEA is coming up, the perfect time to go back to Joy's Californian home town and track down Zan, but none of Joy's friends want anything to do with going with her. The only one that will even consider it is Noah. Will Joy allow him to take her on her crazy adventure? Will how she finds Zan cure her heart? I really enjoyed reading this book. It was cute, funny and definitely stalkerish. I would happily read more books by Emily Wing Smith!