Where She Went–Gayle Forman

Where She Went - Gayle Forman

Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary

My Rating:

It's been three years since the devastating accident . . . three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life forever.

Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Juilliard's rising star and Adam is LA tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia's home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future-and each other.

Told from Adam's point of view in the spare, lyrical prose that defined If I Stay, Where She Went explores the devastation of grief, the promise of new hope, and the flame of rekindled romance.

First of all, I need to say that whilst I liked If I Stay, and I did, I wasn't shouting about it from the rooftops because I felt like there was something missing, a feeling I often get from books where there has been a lot of hype. If I Stay was like a book hurdle I had to get past. I wanted to read the book because the trailer made the film look awesome, and I enjoyed reading the book, but it put me off watching the film, so it’s a multitude of contradictions on that one, some weird logic occurred in my brain. Anyway, it meant I was wary of reading Where She Went because that book could go either way for me and I am not in the habit of reading books I’m not sure I’ll like. I only ended up buying it because it was on offer for 99p on kindle and I was like, why not, I’ll probably want to read it. I’m glad I bought it.

 

It was warm in New Orleans so we’d normally spend three or four hours in the hotel in the afternoon before going out to eat and one of the days I was bored and didn’t fancy watching Netflix so picked up my kindle to look for something to read and I cam across this book. I figured why not? I am glad for that afternoon because I enjoyed this book so much more than If I Stay. Maybe it was because I already knew the characters, maybe it was because it wasn’t set around such a high stress situation or maybe it was simply because it was told from another characters perspective. Whatever it was I adored it.

 

Adam is such an easy character to like, even when he is being ‘a guy’ and acting irrational and paranoid, or one he is acting like a douche, you still like him regardless. This may partly because I remember how wonderful he was in If I Stay, but I think it’s more because Forman has written him so perfectly that he seems real. You can relate to his heartache and can understand where his entire attitude has come from because we have all been there at some point. Been irrational and bitchy and acted like a bit of a knob because you’re heartbroken and so you take your emotions out on all the wrong people because the actual person you want to talk to isn’t around for you to talk to anymore.

 

This book is all about Adam, there aren’t really any other characters, it’s Adam and Mia all the way, and that was nice, but I do kind of wish we got more about Adam’s life. You saw the past, you heard the names of other characters, but they weren’t featured. I wish there was more about the band and Bryn had more than a starring role because I felt for that girl. Forman didn’t flesh her our into an actual person, she was a name and a role, and I wanted more than that from the people featuring in Adam’s life.

 

Sure, this book is a complete wrap up of the open and unfinished ending of If I Stay, it didn’t feel like a full book in many ways, more a novella of sorts I guess, but it also felt completely separate. And this book is not a ground-breaking book, it wasn’t as poignant as If I Stay was but I think that’s why I liked it more. I could relate to and that is what makes it so enjoyable. It’s a definite recommended read to anyway that enjoys a good contemporary novel and the way it was written it makes me want to read Forman’s other books, which I don’t own, but I’ll get on it.

 

Anyone else read this, am I the only one that enjoyed it more than If I Stay? I hope not. Well tell me any thoughts and comments below because I always love to hear from you guys.