G.F. Miller sets out to explore early relationships in her book Not If You Break Up with Me First. The novel follows two best friends: Eve McNeil and Andrew Ozdemir. The pair has “seen each other through growth spurts, family drama, and broken bones” (9). However, hormones and other life changes occur during the summer between seventh and eighth grade.
When Andrew returns from a Florida trip taller, stronger, and with a deeper voice, Eve’s parents are struggling to hold their family together. At school in Andrew’s circle of friends, talk of Legos and video games has shifted to talk of which girls the boys like. For cross country runner Eve, conversations have drifted to make-up and flirting, and every girl is suddenly “acting like a Disney princess hopped up on Rockstar” (35). Because life was simpler before puberty, Eve decides that armpit hair ruins everything, so she begins to measure time between now and BAH (before armpit hair). For Andrew, algebra is easier than eighth grade relationships.
Afraid that Andrew will dump her as a friend, Eve asks Andrew to go to the school dance with her. This agreement is misconstrued when their friends begin to refer to them as boyfriend and girlfriend. Soon, the two are plotting how to break up with minimal public humiliation and peer harassment so that they can return to being best friends.
The pair employs some fairly funny tactics as they attempt to sabotage their new status. As Eve plots ways to protect Andrew’s “fragile boy ego” while getting him to end their crush, she begins to wonder if this is the person she really wants to be. “Flirting and fawning and acting all giggly and swoony” (88) just isn’t the real her. All Eve really wants is for Andrew and her to “get back to laughing and having fun like normal people” (88).
However, Andrew matches Eve’s every move with a counter measure. The competition escalates until it hits “raging fireball” status. And when Eve’s mom leaves for some “thinking space,” Eve wonders if somehow she can get her mom back by hanging on with Andrew just a little longer. “She’d thought that dating him would make her mom happy and somehow fix her parents’ relationship” (175).
Into the midst of these relationship fiascos, Miller sprinkles some sage advice: “Vows are stronger than feelings. . . . Feelings come and go. They change. But no matter how you feel, you can decide to keep your promises” (248).
- Donna