Welcome to the blog tour for
PROOF OF FOREVER by Lexa Hillyer!
Today I’m on the blog tour for PROOF OF FOREVER with a guest post from author Lexa Hillyer! A big thanks to the ladies of Fiction Fare and Swoony Boys Podcast for having me be a part of the tour!
I was really excited for PROOF OF FOREVER before I picked it up and it proved to be light and meaningful all at the same time. If you’re not familiar with the book, it’s a little bit contemporary, a little bit sci-fi! The book details the stories of four girls who once used to be a very tight-knit group of friends but over the past couple of years, they’ve drifted far, far apart. PROOF OF FOREVER gives the girls a second chance to mend those friendships when the four girls get zapped back in time to camp life two years previously. I won’t say too much else about the book, but the concept of this broken group of friends inspired the guest post for Lexa Hillyer!
GUEST POST FROM LEXA HILLYER
Which do you think is harder: friendship break-ups or boyfriend break-ups?
I think friends are more important than boyfriends in the grand scheme of things—precisely because friends are more likely to weather all the storms with you, and you need those roots, that consistency, to ground you and remind you who you are. Love is a space where, especially when we’re young, we sometimes are at risk of losing ourselves.
And also, women live longer than men, so your longest romance will likely be with your female friends who still want to hang out drinking tea and gossiping loudly into your hearing aid when you’re all wrinkled and old.
As for break-ups, well I’ve never actually had one of those horrible sudden friend break-ups you hear about or read about in frenemy books. (Well, except for in first grade, when I went up to my friend Nicole on the playground and she said, to my face, “Sorry Lexa but I don’t want to be friends with you anymore. I’m friends with Ally now.” Ouch! I was mortified, but I quickly realized I didn’t really want to be friends with Nicole that much anymore either.) For the most part, true friendships, at least in my experience, have simply faded over time. Like a plant, they need to be watered regularly and tended to, otherwise they droop. But that said, they can also be rekindled. Sometimes all it takes is one good hang-out and you’re back to being as close as ever. Sometimes it takes longer to warm up again, or you readjust your expectations of the friendship, but still, there’s that connection, and you can recognize it, you can feel it.
Friendships can be forever, fading at times but then coming back when you need them most, like those “immortal jellyfish” that, instead of dying, regenerate in times of duress.
Romantic break-ups on the other hand were always way harder on me. They always seemed so sudden and harsh and messy and sniffly. Once, a guy dumped me right in front of the LOVE sculpture on 55th street and 6th avenue. I sat on the sculpture between the V and the E, trying not to cry. Another boyfriend broke up with me on Valentine’s Day—after giving me a Valentine’s Day present. It was horrible, and I was so upset I got pneumonia! (I did keep the present though—it was actually a pretty nice set of champagne glasses. And at the time, champagne was probably the only thing that got me through that break-up.)
Unlike friendships, sometimes when it’s over it’s really over. I remember one ex with whom it was so painful for me to stay friendly afterward, that I had to delete his number from my phone and stop following him on all social media in order to get over it. And in fact, I still don’t follow him. Even to this day, I still feel weird and sad about it. Then again, romances where it’s not really over after the break-up can be even worse, because it leaves lots of confused lingering unanswered questions and feelings. We keep chasing the dream of what the relationship could have been, instead of realizing the truth, which is that if it really could have been so great, it would have been.
So my advice is:
If you’re going through a friend break-up: let it lie for awhile. If you’re meant to be friends again, you definitely will be. And it won’t be as hard as you think.
If you’re going through a romantic break-up: let it die. Accept that if it was meant to be, it would have BEEN. Maybe you (or he/she) just weren’t ready… but the only way you’ll ever be ready is by dating other people and discovering more about who you are and what works for you in a relationship.
A big, big thank you to Lexa Hillyer! Those are some wise words and I really agree! They’re sort of difficult in their own way but I think friends are easier to drift back to and boyfriend break-ups are much more permanent.
Thanks, Lexa! I really loved reading your thoughts on this! Hope all the readers did too! 🙂
And don’t miss the rest of the blog tour!
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May 25th – Meg @ Swoony Boys Podcast
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May 25th – Jaime @ Fiction Fare
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May 26th – Lisa @ Lost in Lit
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May 27th – Ginger @ G Reads Books
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May 28th – Alexa @ Alexa Loves Books
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May 29th – Heidi @ YA Bibliophile
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June 1st – Andi @ Andi ABC’s
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June 2nd – Sarah @ WhatSarahRead
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June 3rd – Liza @ WhoruBlog
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June 4th – April @ Mainstream Passionista
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June 5th – Brittany @ Book Addicts Guide
GIVEAWAY
There is also a tour-wide giveaway! One lucky winner will win a copy of PROOF OF FOREVER! All you need to do is enter the Rafflecopter form below to enter!
Winner must be 13 years of age or older to win. US residents only, please.
1 thought on “Blog Tour: Proof of Forever | Guest Post + Giveaway!”
Loved this guest post that you did…everything that Lexa Hillyer said is on point.
I’ll definitely be checking this book out! 🙂