Our generation loves reading young adult novels. Authors can’t seem to write enough of them. That is why our Delphi Community High School seniors Bella McGill and Carol Johnson have written their own. I am positive that I could never read enough of these romantic, touching stories, and if you are anything like me, you will absolutely fall in love with In All Ways (and probably cry a lot). Their book will make you fall even deeper in love with love. There are beautiful, unexpected twists that only add to the incredible drama. According to their website on Swoon Reads, In All Ways is “A story about two friends written by two friends.”

It all started when Carol was in English and said what would become the opening line of their book: “You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take. Unless you’re me. I miss one hundred percent of the shots I do take, too,” which is spoken by Karen Goob. Karen is the best friend of Adelaide Miller. Seems simple, right? Well when dealing with senior year, fake boyfriends, too many donuts, and the school’s Beauty and the Beast production, things are definitely complicated. Not to mention that Karen’s fake boyfriend just happens to be Cato Miller, Adelaide’s twin brother.

Through the entire creative process, Carol and Bella luckily had an avid group of supporters. Senior Sadie Jacobs said, “I read it all in one night.” When I asked senior Cole Pearson how he got involved in the book, he said, “They shared it with me and so I just read it, and it was really good. The portrayal of twins was really interesting.” Carol laughed as she remembered, “I kid you not, Cole pushed a desk out of the way, jumped over another desk, shoved the computer in my face, and said, ‘How could you do this to me?’” Senior Xander Brown watched the girls write the story. He said his favorite parts to witness were  “the random parts where you are sitting there in the middle of Econ and you look up and think ‘he does what?’ Cue five minutes of them explaining everything that goes on in the story.” Xander also discovered he has the same thought process as a rich rugby player, but you’ll have to ask him about that.

The story is full of shocking twists and turns, but through the chaos of Karen and Adelaide’s lives, there are a few constant characters. For instance, Gabe is the precious younger brother of Karen. There are several sweet bonding moments between the two, which caused Sadie to proclaim, “People just don’t appreciate how great Gabe is!” Tanner Pearson, another senior groupie, exclaimed, “Have you heard about the Marley revolution? We love Marley!” He is referring to one of Adelaide and Karen’s friends that was taken out of the story at some point in the creative process. Don’t worry, the Marley Revolution brought her to be reintroduced to the story. Every story needs a villain though, right? Meet Benji: Adelaide’s competition in the theatre world. Carol enjoyed telling me: “Benji was fun to create. We made him as big of a jerk as possible. It’s fun to come up with hateable characters. The day we came up with Benji was hilarious.”
If you are inspired to read these girls’ amazing book, please go to https://www.swoonreads.com/m/in-all-ways-3/. This website allows the girls to publish their story online and hopefully be noticed by Macmillan to strike up a real publisher deal. Bella told me: “It has to be on the website for six months and then they will read it and possibly publish it.” So read, rate, and comment on In All Ways to satisfy your curiosity and help Carol and Bella receive the success they have earned.