The Day I Stopped Hating Myself

Author's Note- The End

Well, I've been procrastinating to write this for a long time. It was always clear to me that I wanted to have an AN at the end of my book as well to say goodbye to my readers, but I was unsure about what I actually wanted write about in this AN. 

Now I know. 

First of all, if you're reading this right now, it means you've read till the end of this book, and that's simply awesome. I know that this novel deals with a lot of topics that might be difficult to handle, so thank you for holding on. 

I think that we can all agree that the two main topics of this book are terrorism and love (all kinds of love, not just the romantic love between Sam and Margot/Roxane) , and I actually struggled a lot with how I wanted to portray these, since they are both very serious and important topics. 

What matters a lot to me is that my readers understand that I did NOT use the topic of terrorism and radicalism (which also implies aspects like death, emotional and physical abuse, manipulation, extreme hatred) as a way to create "drama" in this book or to have a better plot. I couldn't care less about that. 

I just wanted to talk about terrorism and the influence it has on society. I could have easily written an essay or some other kind of article, but I didn't, I chose to write a novel (technically a short story, but I prefer the term "novel"). Why? Because I wanted to the reach the most people possible, and I still strongly believe that a fictional story is the best way to raise awareness about something that is sadly not fictional. 

So, to summarize: Primarily, this book is NOT about Roxane's evolution or love or whatever, but about terrorism. That was the reason I decided to write this novel, and therefore it's its core. 

Hence I hope it is has become very clear to each and every one of my readers that terrorism and the people who have suffered from it are NOT a joke to me. I did not write this novel to disrespect them, quite on the contrary even. 

As I mentioned before, the second topic I really struggled with portraying the right way was love. 

I showed the three main types of love: Love for a family member (Roxane forgives her father, who gave up on her, simply because she loves him), love for a friend (Roxane, Lisa and the others help each other with solving their problems), and last but not least, love for a partner, for your other half. 

Some might say that the way I portrayed Roxane's and Sam's love story might have been too cliché, too obvious or too unrealistic. 

I disagree. (Well, obviously, since I'm the author.) 

I firmly believe that once you have found the right one, you know it. You feel it, like Roxane when she meets Sam for the first time at that parking lot. It can happen anywhere at anytime at any age (there's no age in love!!!! teenagers can find their soulmate too). Roxane and Sam know they've found each other, and that's why they take their time, why they don't kiss right away, why they don't get together right away, why they break up after high school and still decide to get married after having been out of touch for years. It's because they know that no matter what happens, no matter how many bumps on the road they'll encounter, in the end of the day, they will be together. 

So I don't think that Roxane's and Sam's love is unrealistic. Quite on the contrary, I think it's the kind of love we'll all experience some day. 

I really hope that this little text could help you understand what went through my head while I wrote this novel. Feel free to write me a private message or to comment if you have any questions or thoughts about anything related to "The Day I Stopped Hating Myself". 

And lastly, if you could strongly relate to the problems of Roxane or one of her friends, please remember that you are not alone. Your situation might seem hopeless right now, but there's hope anywhere, I promise. It doesn't matter if it's a friend, a family member, professional help or even someone here on Wattpad: Someone will be there to help you get better. 

I also want you to know that this is my favorite story I've ever written (and I've written a bunch, believe me... if you're fluent in German, feel free to check out my other stories!) and that I'm so glad that I could share it here with you. 

Thank you for everything. 

Eva xx