Who I Was with Her is author Nita Tyndall’s debut novel, published in 2020 by Harper Teen, a division of Harper Collins.
The story centers on Corinne Parker, a high school senior grappling with the sudden death of her girlfriend Maggie, who attended a rival school. Their relationship is made all the worse because it was a secret—no one knew that Corinne and Maggie were dating. As Corinne tries to make sense of this loss by herself, she increasingly turns to cross-country running, a sport that Maggie loves, as both a coping mechanism and an escape.
But running can’t save Corinne from her mother’s alcoholism. It can’t save her from Elissa, either, Maggie’s ex who shows up at the funeral. And running can’t save Corinne from the college recruitment process, having to choose which school she’d like to attend in the fall, and deciding what she wants her future to look like—all without Maggie. How is Corinne supposed to figure out who she wants to be now?
Through alternating flashbacks and present-day chapters, Corinne begins to confront her sexuality, grief, and the importance of embracing her truths with her friends, her family, and herself. She begins to ask larger questions about who she wants to be, rifling through the expectations of her father, who wants her to attend the best college possible; her running friends, who expect her to get recruited just like them; her best friend Julia, who doesn’t understand why Corinne is so distant lately; and Maggie, who wanted to run at Villanova together, where she imagined they could be out and date publicly.
All these competing expectations leave Corinne wondering: How can she make everyone happy? How is she supposed to know what she wants?
At its heart, Who I Was with Her is a coming-of-age and coming-out story, and much of the plot revolves around Corinne’s understanding and exploration of her bisexuality, which feels, to her, both completely natural at times and completely shameful and unsafe at others. She spends much of the book working through these feelings and addressing her experiences of biphobia, which only add to her shame and fear—and often leave her reeling with panic: What will people think of her if they know she’s bi? What if they treat her differently?
In addition to its in-depth discussion of bisexuality, Who I Was with Her also addresses other LGBT experiences: It includes a brief discussion around asexuality in conversation with Corinne’s best friend Julia.
Overall, Who I Was with Her was well-received by critics. It received a 2020 Bisexual Book Award for Teen/Young Adult Fiction from the now-defunct Bi Writers Association (a list of winners has been archived on Goodreads). Kirkus Reviews called it “a highly readable love story”; it also made the Lambda Literary Review’s most anticipated books list for September 2020.