“I SURVIVED” Books That Should Have Been Written

By Eliana Goldenholz

Hey there, reader.

In the spirit of Lauren Tarshis’s I Survived series, I bring you the other disasters—the ones that don’t make history books, but every modern high schooler knows all too well. Because let’s be honest: sometimes it’s not the big, dramatic moments that shape us. It’s the weird, awkward, unexpected ones. The quiet chaos. The subtle humiliations. The daily endurance tests. And surviving those? That makes us survivors, too.

1. I SURVIVED My Middle School Years, 2019-2022

2. I SURVIVED the “Two Week Quarantine” That Lasted a Year, 2020–2021

3. I SURVIVED A Year of Zoom Glitches, 2021

4. I SURVIVED Being Rickrolled, 2021

5. I SURVIVED Group Projects Where I Did All the Work, 2022

6. I SURVIVED Being a Freshie, 2023

7. I SURVIVED Getting Called On While Not Paying Attention, 2023

8. I SURVIVED Telling a Joke No One Laughed At—and Then Explained*

9. I SURVIVED Disrupting a Class By Laughing Too Hard With Friends, 2023

10. I SURVIVED Waving At Someone Who Wasn’t Waving At Me, 2023

11. I SURVIVED Listening to a Voice Memo of Myself and Questioning My Whole Personality, 2023

12. I SURVIVED A Phone Call I Wasn’t Mentally Prepared For, 2023

13. I SURVIVED the Elevator Ride With Someone I Kinda Know But Not Enough to Talk To, 2024

14. I SURVIVED Having to Re-Enter My Password for the 4th Time and Still Getting It Wrong, 2025

*Obviously this has never happened to me. Why would you even think that?!