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Girls Named Meghan: A Teenage Memoir

Ah, teenage friendships. Often a mess, but they can still leave lasting impressions for the rest of your life, especially the ones that were (in hindsight) a terrible idea. This is the story of Beth’s teenage years and how they intersected with a girl named Meghan in her school. To start things off we see two girls named Meghan, best friends with each other, and they’ve seemingly bonded over Bon Jovi (the story starts in 1996). One Meghan vanishes for a few months, and when she comics back the Meghans have split up. Beth’s Meghan (just referred to as “Meghan” from now on, OK?) tried to kill herself, which kind of but not really explains their split, but Beth was looking for a best friend, Meghan was newly friendless, so it seemed to make sense to pursue her. And it worked, sort of, as Meghan quickly because Beth’s best friend. Still, her obvious trauma made things tricky, to put it mildly. They joined up with a couple of other friends to make up a coven (it was a thing at the time, believe you me), which went well enough until Meghan freaked out and tried to kill herself in front of them all. Then Meghan came back, in full goth phase, and the warning signs really started piling up at this point. Not to get into too much more, as there’s lots to discover here for yourself, but their eventual breakup was messy, confused, violent, and very real. Beth also says up front that the story is based on memories, so obviously she could be getting a few things wrong. But the best thing I can say about it is that it really calls back to the days of teenage friendships, and you’d better believe that a few names/faces I haven’t thought of in decades popped into me head while reading this. If you’re looking for a nostalgia joyride/cringefest, you’d have a hard time finding a better way to do it than reading this book. $15