The Last Boy and Girl in the World Author Siobhan Vivian on Senioritis and Looking Back
The latest from Siobhan Vivian, author of indispensable high school field guide The List, hits shelves today. The Last Boy and Girl in the World is a story of love and self-discovery set on the eve of disaster in the tiny town of Aberdeen, which faces mandatory, permanent evacuation in advance of the rains that will put it underwater. But high-school senior Keeley—who uses humor to get through everything, and has no desire to leave her life behind—chooses to fight for every minute she has left in her hometown. As her family and life as she knows it fall apart, Keeley parties, she makes mistakes, she takes her jokes too far…and she finally makes a play for the boy she’s been crushing on since forever. Here’s Vivian to talk about her own senior year.
Senioritis. I had a bad case of it.
I grew up in a small town in New Jersey where mainstream was the flavor of the day. The popular girls in second grade were the same popular girls senior year.
The Last Boy and Girl in the World
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The Last Boy and Girl in the World
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Hardcover $17.99
I was a girl on the outskirts, funny enough to be included, but weird enough to never be fully embraced. I knew how to play the game, and I absolutely played it, but always with a hint of inner despair. I didn’t find the “cute” boys particularly cute. I didn’t like the songs on the radio everyone sung along to. I had different tastes, different interests, that I often downplayed for the sake of fitting in.
That’s a big reason why I couldn’t wait to get away from my hometown. And when I received my acceptance letter to an art school in Philadelphia, the clock couldn’t tick down fast enough.
In a matter of months, I would get to become the city girl I had always longed to be. My quirky fashion choices would be embraced by the metropolitan set. The bands I loved would play mere blocks away from my dorm.
In Rutherford, I was a flower struggling to blossom in a weak patch of light. When I left, I fully expected to be in full bloom.
And, honestly, it was a little like that. Freeing. Liberating. I know I had to leave Rutherford to become who I am today. The journey changed me.
But I wouldn’t necessarily say it was a change for the better.
Because, looking back, Rutherford was actually a great place to grow up. It was safe, it was intimate, it was picturesque. When I think back to my time in high school, it is 99% a happy experience. But the biggest surprise? The friendships I made when I lived in my hometown are friendships I still have. And they are some of the richest and deepest.
During senior year, I felt like everything about me was a watered-down version of who I was supposed to be. Now I can see it wasn’t actually that way. My friends from Rutherford always knew who I was. They loved that about me then, and they love that about me now.
I thought about this last point a lot while writing The Last Boy and Girl in the World. About a magnified senioritis feeling, where everyone was leaving town at the same time. How that would be freeing and yet also sad.
I don’t live in Rutherford. Or even in New Jersey. And this year, my parents will sell the home I grew up in. I won’t have a place to return to, a home base. I won’t have a direct link tying me to who I used to be. Thankfully, my friendships are strong enough to survive that. And so, in that sense, no matter where I go, who I become, I’m still a girl from Rutherford. I always will be.
The Last Boy and Girl in the World is on sale now.
I was a girl on the outskirts, funny enough to be included, but weird enough to never be fully embraced. I knew how to play the game, and I absolutely played it, but always with a hint of inner despair. I didn’t find the “cute” boys particularly cute. I didn’t like the songs on the radio everyone sung along to. I had different tastes, different interests, that I often downplayed for the sake of fitting in.
That’s a big reason why I couldn’t wait to get away from my hometown. And when I received my acceptance letter to an art school in Philadelphia, the clock couldn’t tick down fast enough.
In a matter of months, I would get to become the city girl I had always longed to be. My quirky fashion choices would be embraced by the metropolitan set. The bands I loved would play mere blocks away from my dorm.
In Rutherford, I was a flower struggling to blossom in a weak patch of light. When I left, I fully expected to be in full bloom.
And, honestly, it was a little like that. Freeing. Liberating. I know I had to leave Rutherford to become who I am today. The journey changed me.
But I wouldn’t necessarily say it was a change for the better.
Because, looking back, Rutherford was actually a great place to grow up. It was safe, it was intimate, it was picturesque. When I think back to my time in high school, it is 99% a happy experience. But the biggest surprise? The friendships I made when I lived in my hometown are friendships I still have. And they are some of the richest and deepest.
During senior year, I felt like everything about me was a watered-down version of who I was supposed to be. Now I can see it wasn’t actually that way. My friends from Rutherford always knew who I was. They loved that about me then, and they love that about me now.
I thought about this last point a lot while writing The Last Boy and Girl in the World. About a magnified senioritis feeling, where everyone was leaving town at the same time. How that would be freeing and yet also sad.
I don’t live in Rutherford. Or even in New Jersey. And this year, my parents will sell the home I grew up in. I won’t have a place to return to, a home base. I won’t have a direct link tying me to who I used to be. Thankfully, my friendships are strong enough to survive that. And so, in that sense, no matter where I go, who I become, I’m still a girl from Rutherford. I always will be.
The Last Boy and Girl in the World is on sale now.