Mariah

From the novel entitled "The Playlist".

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Mariah is the main friend/love interest of Ken in the book entitled The Playlist.

Since the book is about 70 percent of my life, it was only fitting that I added Mariah to the book as she was a very important part of the coming-of-age tale. She is also a character people who know me think they have figured out as they think back to my past, declaring one love interest or another the person behind the character.

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The truth is Mariah isn’t any one person, rather than representing multiple interests in my past. I wanted to create a Wonder Years-type story and had already represented several people from my past. I wanted there to be one constant in Ken’s life, and from that, Mariah was born. She represented the first crush I had on a girl from New Orleans which came in 9th grade in middle school. After leaving middle school for high school, Mariah also represents another girl that I was cool with and had a crush on there. There was a short-lived friendship with another that also made Mariah the character that she is, and by combining all those girls, I had my Winnie Cooper.  

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In the book, Ken and Mariah have a relationship that defines each other. The two were always together and were always protective of one another. The song “If I Ever Fall in Love” is the song that actually does remind me of the first version of Mariah that I ever met. While me and that version of her never became a thing, it's obvious that had I been a little more confident in my approach, me and her probably would have been more than friends. 

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I think I was able to get the character the way I wanted, which was mostly a typical New Orleans teen from the nineties. I also mirrored the end of The Wonder Years slightly which caught a few people off guard (I’m not going to spoil it). Mariah and The Playlist always bring me back to simpler times and always put a smile on my face even now.

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“I know a lot of corner boys talkin’ the same shit as you, sayin’ they don’t have a choice. To be real, unlike you, some of them don’t. They whole family is in that shit, so they gotta do what they gotta do to survive. Not everything is as black and white as you wanna make it. People weren’t lucky like you to grow up the way you did. They do what they gotta do to survive. So think on that before you look down on other folks.” Mariah on Ken looking down on other’s circumstances.