If He Had Been with Me

4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars | 53,560 ratings

Price: 6.64

Last update: 04-10-2025


About this item

More than ONE MILLION copies sold!

A BookTok Viral Sensation

#1 New York Times Bestseller

A USA TODAY Bestseller

An achingly authentic and raw portrait of love, regret, and the life-altering impact of the relationships we hold closest to us, this YA romance bestseller is perfect for fans of Colleen Hoover, Jenny Han, and Lynn Painter.

If he had been with me, everything would have been different…

Autumn and Finn used to be inseparable. But then something changed. Or they changed. Now, they do their best to ignore each other.

Autumn has her boyfriend Jamie, and her close-knit group of friends. And Finn has become that boy at school, the one everyone wants to be around.

That still doesn't stop the way Autumn feels every time she and Finn cross paths, and the growing, nagging thought that maybe things could have been different. Maybe they should be together.

But come August, things will change forever. And as time passes, Autumn will be forced to confront how else life might have been different if they had never parted ways…

Captivating and heartbreaking, If He Had Been with Me is perfect for readers looking for:

  • Contemporary teen romance books
  • Unputdownable & bingeworthy novels
  • Complex emotional YA stories
  • TikTok Books
  • Jenny Han fans
  • Colleen Hoover fans

From the Publisher

The YA Version of Colleen Hoover - Don't Miss this NYT Bestseller

Top reviews from the United States

  • 70sCoolKat
    5.0 out of 5 stars Prepare a tissue
    Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2024
    This book is amazing! True the beginning can be kinda slow, but the ending oh my. I cried for days after I read this book. And I'm not the emotional type. I could not pick up another book after reading this series for a month! Would definitely recommend
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    70sCoolKat
    5.0 out of 5 stars Prepare a tissue
    Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2024
    This book is amazing! True the beginning can be kinda slow, but the ending oh my. I cried for days after I read this book. And I'm not the emotional type. I could not pick up another book after reading this series for a month! Would definitely recommend
    Images in this review
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  • AAK
    4.0 out of 5 stars My favorite book
    Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2024
    I will say, I’m kinda disappointed in the quality of the book I got on amazon, the color on edges of the hardcover is kind of messed up and faded, but I’ve seen the book in other stores in person and it hasn’t had that. Plus, I’m still wildly happy to have the book now, especially the collectors edition. I kept on checking the book out at my library, I got tired of renting it and decided to just buy it myself, I’d buy it again just to support Laura Nowlin and to, I guess, support Autumn too. The book is a five star book, beautiful writing that stays in your heart. Also, the book is gorgeous. I bought another for my friend too
    Customer image
    AAK
    4.0 out of 5 stars My favorite book
    Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2024
    I will say, I’m kinda disappointed in the quality of the book I got on amazon, the color on edges of the hardcover is kind of messed up and faded, but I’ve seen the book in other stores in person and it hasn’t had that. Plus, I’m still wildly happy to have the book now, especially the collectors edition. I kept on checking the book out at my library, I got tired of renting it and decided to just buy it myself, I’d buy it again just to support Laura Nowlin and to, I guess, support Autumn too. The book is a five star book, beautiful writing that stays in your heart. Also, the book is gorgeous. I bought another for my friend too
    Images in this review
    Customer image
  • I’ve swallowed 2 of the balls while eating I accidentally bit the first one and it popped off and the second just came out while I was swallowing. If you pul on these they pop off with little force.
    5.0 out of 5 stars This book is absolutely heart crushing.
    Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2024
    This book killed me. It is the most heart crushing book I have ever read. It is so good that I just kept wanting more. I read the second book and it gave me a little bit of peace of mind. It was almost like I got attached to the characters like they were my own. This book made me shed, tears cry, and even Put on a new depression med. Please take caution while reading this. I love this author and her stories are amazing. I definitely recommend reading it. Just be prepared.
  • Chelsea
    3.0 out of 5 stars oof
    Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2023
    *Spoilers*

    Firstly I can’t remember who raved about this book and recommended it to me but I’d like to give them a piece of my mind. There were so many frustrating things about the sentences and how poorly this book was structured. It’s the worst one by far with this issue. I’ve read to many books to count. The author was all over the place. And no I’m not talking about the time skipping of months going by (I like books like that), which were pretty confusing as one sentence would be early spring and the next paragraph it would be fall. With no spacing or marking to show passing of time like most authors would do. There were very few dates used (more toward the end of the book). Mainly holidays used as markers. The author would go back and forth from present to future to past without any information to what is what. I couldn’t tell what were the main characters thoughts and what were actually memories of her and finny. The actual story I liked though. A few things I think the story could have absolutely done without but that is just personal preference. The whole teenage baby mama situation.. why? It provided nothing. The mention at the end of the book of finny holding the baby? That’s all that side story was meant for. Could have just done without it. I love tragic stories and endings. Of ppl who are meant to be. Who know they love each other, but who don’t communicate and ruin their own chances of happiness. It’s real life and it’s raw. It’s why the show normal people is my favorite. Which this book reminded me a bit of. All the miscommunication the let’s be friends to not being friends to being lovers. It could have been a great story like that one. Until the author said she was pregnant after being hospitalized, after trying to unalive herself after finny died. Why the pregnancy. Why couldn’t she have just died, or better yet lived and turned into the writer she was meant to be. To move on with time and become that writer in that coffee shop.
    Why must women have to become mothers to somehow have the will to live again? As the story ends with exactly that. She magically now has the will to live now that she has to live to raise a child *eye roll*. Instead of it being tragic or her becoming what she’s meant to be. It ruined the whole story for me. I’m tired of stories ending in pregnancies and being used to make a character have something to live for. The character should have died like finny. It would have been the tragic love story I thought this book was supposed to be. Needless to say I won’t be reading the finny’s perspective book that’s coming out. One last thing I will note, the main character is 100% undiagnosed autistic, it made it worth reading the rest of the book.
  • Sandro
    5.0 out of 5 stars 10/10
    Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2024
    I started reading this book right as I got back into reading and that was the best choice. This book is like it’s happing in real time and I love how it goes into detail about certain subjects and situations.this book is a light read I read it in about 4 days it took a little longer for me to read because I had school but I would recommend this this book broke my heart and fixed it I would recommend this book to everyone
  • Danae Morriah
    4.0 out of 5 stars Book Review
    Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2024
    If he had been with me by Laura Nowlin - "
    Like most of my stories, it will end tragically.

    3.5/5

    It's seemingly an odd feeling when you finish a book you could predict the ending of. I will start by saying that I liked the book. It was a beautiful coming-of-age story that puts you in the mindset of high school kids and leads you to reminisce on the friends you once had and the reasons you went your separate way. However, while this book has several good parts that I will mention, it also has some parts that deter me from singing its praises.

    We'll start with the veggies. I couldn't believe how in denial Autumn was about her feelings for Finny. I mean I get that he's a popular boy now and it's an insecure thing to wonder why an attractive boy is into you but she knew him way before that. She'd known him since birth, long enough to know what his facial expressions and body language meant but she couldn't pick up that he liked her or even that he missed her. Another thing I disliked was the predictability of everything. From the second something was said you could picture the outcome. For instance, when Autumn said she and Sasha fought over Jamie in the beginning, as soon as Sasha broke up with her boyfriend and started hanging out with Jamie alone you knew what was going to happen. Also, as soon as her friend mentioned having unprotected sex you knew she was going to get pregnant which ruined the ending of the cycle continuing when Autumn has unprotected sex.

    Now for the desert. I loved that the story was told from Autumn's point of view and I believe one of the most realistic feelings this book portrays is the relationship of Autumn's parents. As a teenager, you tend to ignore the adults around you because they don't understand you and you would never want their life and you get that from Autumn. She sees her absent father and knows not to depend on him or expect him to know why she wears tiaras or how she expresses herself. She looks at her mother and doesn't want to become her or exhibit the depressive episodes that she witnesses her mother go through. But in the end, when she loses Finny we see her become her mother and we get a glimpse of it when she goes through seasonal depression.

    Overall, this book is a good read. After all, I couldn't put it down. It reminded me of what I was like as a teenager in some ways, the group of friends you'd never thought you'd lose until everyone's life changed. I also related to her relationship with her parents. There's so much to hold onto when reading this book. I just wish I didn't see the most shocking parts of the book coming. I wish I could've been surprised when Jamie cheated, her parents divorced, Finny confessed his love, when he died, her suicide attempt, and when she found out she was pregnant. Or maybe I wish he'd been with her.

    Favorite Quotes:
    • I've loved him my whole life, and somewhere along the way, that love didn't change but grew. It grew to fill the parts of me that I did not have when I was a child. It grew with every new longing of my body and desire until there was not a piece of me that did not love him. And when I look at him, there is no other feeling in me.
    • Stay I whisper to him. Stay in the car. Stay in this moment. But of course he never does.
    • Perhaps he would ask me what books mean to me. I would tell him that it means living another life;
    • They don’t see that her tension and perfection are the only things holding her together.
    • I cannot imagine not wanting to live. I cannot imagine not believing that it will be better someday. I cannot imagine that there is nothing left to see, that there is nothing to tie me to Earth. As long as I want to live, then I must be fine.
    • If he had been with me, everything would have been different.

    Favorite Characters:
    Finny, Autumn, Aunt Angelina, Angie, Alex, Jack

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