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The Way I Used to Be

Amber Smith
Buy on Amazon Kindle
contemporary fiction psychological drama / coming-of-age past tense first POV ~368 pp
features extracted 2026-04-12

Vibe

traumatic claustrophobic angsty

A dark contemporary fiction. Expect minimal worldbuilding, dense, literary prose, epic scope. Plot-driven and deeply introspective. Ends on an unresolved note. Contains notable violence, romance, sexual content.

Style Fingerprint

Prose density 75
sparsedense
Pacing 40
slow burnpropulsive
Emotional tone 20
darkhopeful
Worldbuilding 5
minimalmaximal
Char / plot 85
character-drivenplot-driven
Interiority 90
externalintrospective
Ending 10
unresolvedcathartic
Stakes 95
intimateepic

Content

Violence 95%
noneextreme
Sexual content 85%
noneexplicit
Humor 15%
seriouscomedic
Romance 65%
nonecentral

Structure & Cast

Structure
Word count91,995
Page count~368 pp
Prologue—
Epilogue—
Tensepast
Cast & World
POVfirst

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