Review: Where She Went by Gayle Forman

If I Stay, Book 2 (Book One review here)


Tags: YA, contemporary, romance, music, NYC

Summary

Three years after Mia’s family was killed in a devastating car crash, Adam is a hot international rock star and Mia is Juilliard’s next new professional cellist. The only problem is, Adam and Mia have not talked since then. Adam is living the dream life, filled with money and girls and awards, but he is still wracked by the pain of their breakup, and it has really screwed him up.

Then, Adam and Mia cross paths again one night in New York City. Told with a series of flashbacks as to where their relationship went wrong, Adam narrates his night with Mia, a night that could be as insignificant as randomly running into the person who broke your heart…or as life-changing as imaginable.

Review

I was actually very happy with how If I Stay ended. When I heard that Gayle Forman was coming out with a sequel to If I Stay, however, I was curious to see how it would turn out in Gayle’s talented hands. Turns out, it’s as good as it gets.

At first, Adam seems like a rather unlikable character. In many ways, he acts like a spoiled, ungrateful brat, being nasty to people and taking the whole “I was dumped by my girlfriend” thing too far to be sympathetic to. However, he is easy to sympathize with. A romantic situation that could’ve easily been melodramatic is meticulously revealed to us in small, emotional bits, filling in the three years between the car crash and the present day. Everything in this book just progresses effortlessly: we can pretty much believe that these are two real people whose lives are simply being recorded down in this book.

In Adam and Mia’s story, we see the emotional complexity that goes into a relationship rife with tragedy and change. Why do people act the way they do? How can what one person does or thinks about their relationship seem so irrational to their partner? WHERE SHE WENT is the best book I’ve read that explores these subtleties. It’s deep, and yet it’s not preachy, or so deep as to be unrelatable.

WHERE SHE WENT is, simply put, so, so good. It’s beautiful without being over the top, memorable without being unrealistic. If you read and loved If I Stay, then this sequel is an absolute must-read, if simply for the fact that you will get more of Adam and Mia. And if you haven’t read If I Stay yet, I think I will have to come after you and bug you until you do.

Writing: 5/5
Characters: 5/5
Plot: 4/5

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5


Cover discussion: I've cover lusted after this before, but yeah, I don't care that it's more conventional than If I Stay's old cover. It's very beautiful.

Dutton Juvenile / April 5, 2011 / Hardcover / 208pp. / $16.99

Received for review from publisher. Thank you!

Waiting on Wednesday (80)

I generally try not to feature more than one book at a time on WoW posts, but several books that I have long been pining for finally revealed their covers recently, and I couldn't resist!

Across the Universe by Beth Revis
(Razorbill / Jan. 11, 2011)

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone—one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship—tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn’t do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now, Amy must race to unlock Godspeed’s hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there’s only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

I've known Beth from her blog before she got her book deal and became a mega-star author. Doesn't her debut novel sound fantastic? A murder mystery aboard a spaceship--gotta love me some good sci-fi! And what a gorgeous cover. I was so anxious, hoping that she'd get a really good one, and this one has a total movie poster vibe to it that would look fantastic blown up and hung on a wall. I'm an astrophysics nerd, so I'm absolutely gaga over the bottom half of that cover, and the top half is creepily sci-fi. You can read Chapter 1 at the book's website too! Yayyy, Beth!

Fall for Anything by Courtney Summers
(St. Martin's Griffin / Dec. 21, 2010)

When Eddie Reeves’s father commits suicide her life is consumed by the nagging question of why? Why when he was a legendary photographer and a brilliant teacher? Why when he had a daughter who loved him more than anyone else in the world? When she meets Culler Evans, a former student of her father’s and a photographer himself, an instant and dangerous attraction begins. He seems to know more about her father than she does and could possibly hold the key to the mystery surrounding his death. But Eddie’s vulnerability has weakened her and Culler Evans is getting too close. Her need for the truth keeps her hanging on… but some questions should be left unanswered.

Courtney's books are auto-buys for me. I don't care if she chooses to write about boarding schools, or vampires, or rainbow-striped unicorns... I will read it. So happy she has another book coming out soon!

Where She Went by Gayle Forman
(Dutton / April 19, 2011)

The sequel to If I Stay, from Adam's point of view 3 years later. Adam, now a rising rock star, and Mia, a successful cellist, reunite in New York and reconnect after the horrific events that tore them apart when Mia almost died in a car accident three years earlier.

There's not much about this book out there yet (except for the teaser tour that's been going on these past few weeks), but this is an absolute must for me. If I Stay had me bawling for hours and hours, and, uh, this cover? Total cover love. Yes, I'm aware it's another picture of a female model, but I don't care, I love the saturation and the wind in her hair and the bluish-gray background.

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I am SO UTTERLY EXCITED for these three books!

Review: If I Stay by Gayle Forman

Publication date: April 2, 2009

Tags: YA, death, music, love, Oregon

It was the snow’s fault. Oregoners aren’t used to it. And so a freak car crash kills 17-year-old Mia’s parents and younger brother and leaves her in grave condition at a Portland hospital. Mia has an out-of-body experience and looks down at her own messed-up body: asphalt abrasions, collapsed lung, brain contusions, orphaned, with a grim and devastating future ahead for her.

Even with all her loved ones praying for her in the waiting room, Mia feels like she has nothing left to live for. So what if she gets into Juilliard with her amazing cello playing? So what if her wonderful boyfriend, punk rocker Adam, wants her to stay? What is it all without her adoring family, to be known as the orphan girl for the rest of her life?

No matter what others want of her, the decision is Mia’s alone. Will she let herself go and join her family? Or will she choose the painful life and an uncertain future?

Calling this book stunning and heart-rending is no exaggeration. I was in tears for the last third of this book. Gayle Forman’s characters are so well drawn, realistic yet intriguing and lovable. After reading this book you’ll wish you had cool parents like Mia’s! I particularly loved Mia and Adam, the unlikely musical couple: her classical versus his “emo-core.” Their relationship is not perfect, but it’s their imperfections—and how they get through it—that strikes such a chord with me, makes me cheer for them through all their hardships.

I won’t be surprised if IF I STAY becomes one of 2009’s most talked-about books, racking up the awards—and the tissues. Don’t miss this one, please.

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Rating: 4.5 out of 5