The Girl He Used to Know

by Tracey Garvis Graves

Such is my desire to replace the memories of the girl he used to know with the woman I’ve become.

I knew from almost the beginning that I wanted to show the significance of the title of the book. The girl he used to know could apply to almost any woman a man had been in a prior relationship with. But in this case, there was an equally - if not more so - significant meaning for Annika. So much of her journey was about finding out who she was and what she was capable of accomplishing. But she also wanted to share this growth with Jonathan because he was someone who encouraged it. The highlighted sentence is fairly long. I went back-and-forth on whether or not I should try to edit it down or break it into two. But in the end I really liked the way it anchored the chapter and kicked off the rest of the book so I left it alone.