The Plot: In Christine Heppermann's 2016 verse novel Ask Me How I Got Here, high school sophomore Addie attends an all-girls Catholic school (Immaculate Heart Academy) where she runs on the cross country team. At the beginning of the narrative, Addie is dating a junior named Craig from St. Luke's, but his drinking and partying eventually lead her to developing a connection with his best friend, Nick. Addie and Nick kiss after a party one night, Addie breaks up with Craig, and begins dating Nick. After dating for a few months, Nick and Addie have sex and she becomes pregnant. Addie talks to her boyfriend, and eventually her parents, and decides that she wants to have an abortion. The remaining half of the narrative focuses on Addie's physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological struggles and growth after her abortion. Although Addie never wavers in her view that having an abortion was the right choice for her, she is conflicted throughout the narrative with what her choice means for her morally and how she will be perceived by others because of her choice. In the second half of the narrative, Addie reunites with Juliana, a former cross country runner who graduated the year before. Addie decides to quit the cross country team, and is happy to meet regularly with Juliana, who is taking a break from college cross country and going to therapy to deal with her own demons.The Poetry: Heppermann's verse novel is primarily told through free verse poems, but interspersed throughout the collection are various haiku and prose poems. Throughout Ask Me How I Got Here, Addie's narrative is juxtaposed with her own writing (written in a script, sans serif font) which includes poetry, mostly focused on the figure of the Virgin Mary, and assignments for various classes. Heppermann uses a variety of poetic techniques beyond the syllabics of the haiku including imagery, lyricism, anaphora, and metaphor. For example, in the poem "Sunday Morning," one of the early poems written by Addie, she draws connections between her sexuality and religious devotion:
His mouth a skittish liturgy
along my neck,
my need a holy ache,
a blessing, I tilt back my head,
prepare to receive
communion (32).
In this poem, Heppermann utilizes rich religious imagery and the lyric in order to foreground the bodily experience of her protagonist. In the haiku that immediately follows this poem, "A Risky Equation," the poet juxtaposes this lyric imagery with a more restrained, formal approach to express her speaker's regret and anxiety: "Add one plus one plus / zero condoms to equal / pleasepleaseplease not three" (33).The Page: One subtle way that the author/publisher underscores the significance of her use of both narrative poems and the writing of her character is through the use of alternating page color throughout the narrative. All of the poems, class assignments, and letters written by Addie are marked with a slightly grey-toned page color, in addition to the use of a script-style, sans serif font and a inked-in script scribble at the end of the title and final line of the writing.
One of the strengths of Heppermann's verse novel is the fact that it never becomes overly didactic in terms of its approach to discussing Addie's abortion, and overall the narrative's conclusion is open-ended. I found Heppermann's Ask Me How I Got Here to be a fine verse novel. I give it three stars.
