Certainly not something you read every day. It Wasn’t Always Like This is a captivating YA novel that complexly reads like contemporary, mystery, fantasy and even historical. I was quite impressed and a bit sad that the book is underrated on Goodreads. The main premise has something to do with eternal youth and how it is the reason for everything Emma had to sacrifice including her family and Charlie, the boy she loves and now she is constantly on the run because her past and the villains in it are still after her, even taking out lives of many other girls mistaken as her.
The POV alternates between the past and the present in the third person and it gives enough mystery about the possibility of Charlie still being alive. The writing is quite whimsical, something you might read from classic novels and it’s perfect for the story’s theme what with the idea of the Fountain of Youth and all but it’s also very current especially when the story is narrated during the now. The plot is also very fast-paced and I find myself enjoying the read more than I expected I would. The ending is pretty sweet too, not an ounce of cheesiness in it.
