I Was Here by Gayle Forman

Trigger Warning/TW for Suicide

I Was Here by Gayle Forman

Version: Kindle

Synopsis:

When her best friend Meg drinks a bottle of industrial-strength cleaner alone in a motel room, Cody is understandably shocked and devastated. She and Meg shared everything—so how was there no warning? But when Cody travels to Meg’s college town to pack up the belongings left behind, she discovers that there’s a lot that Meg never told her. About her old roommates, the sort of people Cody never would have met in her dead-end small town in Washington. About Ben McAllister, the boy with a guitar and a sneer, and some secrets of his own. And about an encrypted computer file that Cody can’t open—until she does, and suddenly everything Cody thought she knew about her best friend’s death gets thrown into question.

I Was Here is Gayle Forman at her finest, a taut, emotional, and ultimately redemptive story about redefining the meaning of family and finding a way to move forward even in the face of unspeakable loss.

Review:

“I don’t know if I had ever really listened to the words before, because when I did now, they were like a smack from her grave. It says you can still forgive her. And she will forgive you back.

But I don’t know that I can. And I don’t know that she did.”

– Cody Reynolds, I Was Here

Gayle Forman, author of books such as If I Stay, Where She Went, and Just One Day brings readers I Was Here, the story of one young woman’s search for answers in the wake of a tragedy. Meg and Cody were best friends. Where Meg ended, Cody began. They knew everything about each other. Except they didn’t. Not even close. Because Cody had no idea that her best friend was so depressed that she needed to swallow poison to make the pain go away. When someone takes their life unexpectedly, it’s natural for those around them to question why they didn’t see any warning signs. It’s also understandable to look for some reasoning behind their decision.

As humans we’re conditioned to ask questions about situations that leave us confused. Why? Because answers help us cope. Help us move on. And we cannot move on until we reach a conclusion, a finality in our quest for answers. So when Meg’s grieving parents ask their daughter’s best friend, Cody, who is like a second daughter to them, to pick up Meg’s stuff from school, she accepts, albeit reluctantly. Although combing through the remainders of Meg’s life feels all wrong for Cody, she continues doing so. While picking up Meg’s belongings, she meets her former roommates who were just as in the dark about Meg’s suicide as her parents and Cody, her supposed best friend. Cody also stumbles upon Ben McCallister, the guy who broke Meg’s heart.

Cody is looking for someone to blame – someone other than herself that is – for Meg’s heartache. At first, the person that fits that bill is Ben. Even more so after she finds e-mail after e-mail from Meg to Ben that for the most part go unanswered. There is one poignant response from Ben, however; the one where he tells Meg she needs to leave him alone. If only he knew the lengths she would go to to satisfy that request. Only it’s not that simple. Even Cody knows that. Most college freshmen don’t kill themselves over unrequited feelings.

When Meg’s parents insist Cody keep Meg’s laptop, Cody gets an insight into her best friend’s world that she never saw coming. Meg had joined a suicide support group. But it’s not the type of group that dissuades suicide. Oh, no. It is one that encourages it.

This is a discovery that leaves Cody reeling and angry. Angry that people – specifically one person – would goad her obviously confused best friend into killing herself. This person and this group need to pay. Fueled by a myriad of emotions, Cody hatches a plan. She makes a profile for the page and begins to post in an attempt to lure out the man who helped Meg take her own life. And at first, Cody knows it’s all lies. But in a way, it’s also the truth. When she writes about losing her other half in Meg, she isn’t lying. And even though Cody goes into this knowing it’s a hoax, it doesn’t make it any less intoxicating when she is able to make contact with the user going by the name “All_BS.”

In addition to playing detective, Cody also struggles to keep her distance from Ben, who she begins to find herself drawn to despite the best of her intentions. After all, Ben is guy who broke Meg’s heart. Between tracking down All_BS and her attempts to not fall into Ben’s trap like the many girls before her and Meg, Cody is barely holding it together. Maybe it would be easier to just end her own life the same way Meg did. They were best friends, were they not?

While at the surface, I Was Here appears to be a tale of suicide and those left behind, but as one digs deeper, what they’ll discover is that it’s a story about forgiveness, for those who are no longer with us, for those who still are, and most importantly, for ourselves. It’s about the painful process of moving on when there’s too many questions left answered and living in a world that is more vague than certain without your best friend, but still needing to find a way to survive.

Conclusion:

5 out of 5 stars.

The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith

The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith

Version: Kindle

Synopsis:

Lucy lives on the 24th floor. Owen lives in the basement. It’s fitting, then, that they meet in the middle – stuck between two floors of a New York City apartment building, on an elevator rendered useless by a citywide blackout. After they’re rescued, Lucy and Owen spend the night wandering the darkened streets and marveling at the rare appearance of stars above Manhattan. But once the power is back, so is reality. Lucy soon moves abroad with her parents, while Owen heads out west with his father.

The brief time they spend together leaves a mark. And as their lives take them to Edinburgh and to San Francisco, to Prague and to Portland, Lucy and Owen stay in touch through postcards, occasional e-mails, and phone calls. But can they – despite the odds – find a way to reunite?

Review:

Love can find you in the most unexpected places at the most unexpected times, like say an elevator during a blackout in New York City. And that is where we meet Owen and Lucy.

Seventeen year old Owen has been plucked out of his Pennsylvania home which he shared with his parents when a tragedy hits to the busying city streets of New York, which he hates.

Sixteen year old Lucy is a latchkey kid if you ever did find one, usually staying with her older brothers while her parents jet off to Europe. Only now her brothers are away in college and with her parents away too, she’s left to her own devices.

One fateful afternoon when Lucy goes to check the mail and Owen is on his way to the roof of the building (one of the few perks of being the new building manager’s son) they meet in the elevator. They’re not in there for long when it literally envelops them in darkness and they are stranded. Soon the talking and banter begins. Although they are rescued not soon after, they decide to continue spending the day together.

Smith builds a very sweet, but slow-building romance between the two, a romance that is quickly put on the proverbial back burner when Lucy’s parents want her to come finish out her last two years of high school in London and Owen’s father loses his job as the building’s manager, sending them on a road trip to Anywhere But Here and We’ll Know When We Get There.

Communicating through postcards and e-mail, Lucy and Owen attempt to maintain their fledgling relationship, something anyone who’s ever been in a long distance relationship can confirm, is a lot easier said than done. As Lucy moves from Edinburgh to London and Owen from places like San Francisco to Seattle, and their communication dwindles, the two can only wonder: are some moments just meant to be fleeting? And can you really keep the spark going with someone you met in the dark?

Conclusion:

4 out of 5 stars

Learning Not to Drown by Anna Shinoda

Learning Not to Drown by Anna Shinoda

Version: Kindle

Synopsis:

There is a pecking order to every family. Seventeen-year-old Clare is the overprotected baby; Peter is the typical, rebellious middle child; and Luke is the can’t-do-wrong favorite. In their eyes, they are a normal, happy family. But sometimes it’s the people who are closest to us who are the hardest to see.

Clare loves her older brother, Luke—it’s not his fault that he’s always in the wrong place at the wrong time. Life as Luke’s sister hasn’t been easy—their community hasn’t been nearly as forgiving of his transgressions as she and her parents are—but he’s done his time and is on his way home again, and she has to believe this time will be different. But when the truths behind his arrests begin to surface, everything Clare’s always known is shaken to its core.

Clare has to decide if sticking up for herself and her future means selfishly turning her back on family…or if it’s the only way to keep herself from drowning along with them.

Review:

This book was good, but haunting, like eerily haunting. I thought it was a very interesting and well-written premise about a family dealing with a son and brother who is an addict and whose addiction causes him to be in and out of jail.

Clare’s memories of older brother Luke are romanticized in a way. She only remembers the good and believes Luke will change, but then something happens that forces the truth about Luke to come out and Clare is faced head on with how she feels about Luke and how she’ll subsequently deal with the fallout.

Clare’s parents – her mother more so than her father – were difficult to sympathize with and really the part that made me want to throw my kindle against the wall. And that’s not a criticism of the author. Quite the opposite. It elicited such an emotional response because it’s so easy to understand how when one of your children is ‘broken’ according to societal standards, you become stagnant in denial land and your other children fall through the cracks; however, Clare’s mother’s stance of protecting Luke makes her very emotionally and verbally abusive to her other children, especially Clare, which was hard to read.

I agree when others say this is an emotional roller coaster of a book. Still, it’s a book I thoroughly enjoyed despite the uncomfortable parts.

Conclusion:

4 out of 5 stars

The Forgetting Time by Sharon Guskin

The Forgetting Time by Sharon Guskin

Version: Hard copy

Synopsis:

What would you do if your four-year-old son claimed he had lived another life and that he wants to go back to it? That he wants his other mother?

Single mom Janie is trying to figure out what is going on with her beloved son Noah. Noah has never been ordinary. He loves to make up stories, and he is constantly surprising her with random trivia someone his age has no right knowing. She always chalked it up to the fact that Noah was precocious―mature beyond his years. But Noah’s eccentricities are starting to become worrisome. One afternoon, Noah’s preschool teacher calls Janie: Noah has been talking about shooting guns and being held under water until he can’t breathe. Suddenly, Janie can’t pretend anymore. The school orders him to get a psychiatric evaluation. And life as she knows it stops for herself and her darling boy.

For Jerome Anderson, life as he knows it has already stopped. Diagnosed with aphasia, his first thought as he approaches the end of his life is, I’m not finished yet. Once an academic star, a graduate of Yale and Harvard, a professor of psychology, he threw everything away to pursue an obsession: the stories of children who remembered past lives. Anderson became the laughing stock of his peers, but he never stopped believing that there was something beyond what anyone could see or comprehend. He spent his life searching for a case that would finally prove it. And with Noah, he thinks he may have found it.

Soon, Noah, Janie, and Anderson will find themselves knocking on the door of a mother whose son has been missing for eight years. When that door opens, all of their questions will be answered.

Gorgeously written and fearlessly provocative, Sharon Guskin’s debut explores the lengths we will go for our children. It examines what we regret in the end of our lives and hope for in the beginning, and everything in between.

Review:

Wow. Let me emphasize that a little bit more. WOWWWWWWWWW. Sharon Guskin hits a home run with her debut novel, The Forgetting Time. 

I really did not want this book to end because I found it so engrossing. That to me is the mark of a great book. When you absolutely positively don’t want it to end because you really feel like you’ll be missing something great by finishing it and letting it go.

That’s how I felt about this story.

I will preface this by saying I do believe in reincarnation. However, it may not be your cuppa and that’s fine. But I’ll ask if you think not believing will affect your ability to enjoy the story. If the answer is yes, then perhaps you should skip it. If the answer is no, then grab your favorite cold or hot drink and find a comfy spot, because ho-ho, you’re gonna be there a while with this one!

This story follows single mom Janie and her precocious son four year old son, Noah. Parenting is never easy, and parenting as a single mother is even harder, but what do you do when you’re Janie and your son starts to remember things he should have no memory of whatsoever? It’s one thing for Noah to be odd. It’s another for him to be downright out of his mind. He has a vivid memory of a vacation house they’ve never been to. He’s never seen a gun, but tells stories of being shot. Janie’s never read Harry Potter to him, and yet, he knows details from the books. Faced with the possibility that Noah might be sick, Janie becomes desperate for answers, desperate enough to seek out Dr. Jerome Anderson. Anderson, who was once a prominent and promising professor of psychology is now the laughing stock of his field. Why? Because his life’s work has become about chasing down accounts of past lives.

It’s really difficult for me to describe what this is book is about because it’s really about a multitude of things. Sure, it’s a book about past lives, and the connection between mothers and sons, but ultimately, at its core, it’s one that challenges us to ask questions like what came before and how does it affect who we are now? Do we really only live once? And finally, can we ever reconcile our past with our future?

Rating:

5 out 5 stars

Little Mercies by Heather Gudenkauf

Little Mercies by Heather Gudenkauf

Version: Kindle

Synopsis: 

Veteran social worker Ellen Moore has seen the worst side of humanity—the vilest acts one person can commit against another. She is a fiercely dedicated children’s advocate and a devoted mother and wife. But one blistering summer day, a simple moment of distraction will have repercussions that Ellen could never have imagined, threatening to shatter everything she holds dear, and trapping her between the gears of the system she works for. 

Meanwhile, ten-year-old Jenny Briard has been living with her well-meaning but irresponsible father since her mother left them, sleeping on friends’ couches and moving in and out of cheap motels. When Jenny suddenly finds herself on her own, she is forced to survive with nothing but a few dollars and her street smarts. The last thing she wants is a social worker, but when Ellen’s and Jenny’s lives collide, little do they know just how much they can help one another. 

A powerful and emotionally charged tale about motherhood and justice, Little Mercies is a searing portrait of the tenuous grasp we have on the things we love the most, and of the ties that unexpectedly bring us together.

Review: 

Heather Gudenkauf is one of those rare breed of authors who truly never lets you down. Sure, there are those who write and who write well, but it’s almost like going to a restaurant and ordering a meal and expecting it to be the same the next time. The texture is the same, the flavor is the same, but there’s something off about the meal. It’s just not as good as it was the first time and you find yourself wishing you could go back to that moment, to the very first time you ate that delicious dinner and pinpoint exactly what the mystery ingredient is.

But reading Heather Gudenkauf is like being able to experience that first amazing meal over and over again. In short? She doesn’t disappoint.

Little Mercies follows Ellen Moore, a dedicated social worker who is truly a bleeding heart for all of the neglected and abused children out there, after an accident thrusts her into the spotlight as a neglectful mother. Ellen has seen it all; the good, the bad, the ugly, but she never thought she would fit into the latter categories, but after a hectic morning, Ellen misses a crucial detail, her youngest daughter Avery whom has been left in her car in the sweltering summer heat.

It’s hard for a story like this to not evoke strong emotions. On the one hand, we’re a society of multitaskers and so caught up in the hustle and bustle of daily life and the demands that it’s not impossible to imagine a situation where this could happen. But on the other hand, this isn’t forgetting to pay a bill. This is a child. A human being. And yet, we expect parents – especially mothers – to be perfect that it’s almost a recipe for disaster and failure. I was very torn. I was frustrated. I was angry with Ellen, but the sympathetic part of me, that person who understands how frantic life can get found myself crying right along with her, fervently stating, “It was an accident!”

As we’re there with Ellen and her family as they go through the motions in the aftermath of such a tragedy, we also meet Jenny Briard, a young girl who has traveled a long way by herself, a girl who has a connection to Ellen that neither are aware of.

Gudenkauf is able to weave this incredible web of connectivity where the ripples are unseen by the naked eye, but very much present. In the end we’re left to decide what should have happened, what shouldn’t have happened, why these events took place, and if there really is a bit of mercy even in the wake of destruction.

Rating:

5 out of 5 stars.

The Things We Keep by Sally Hepworth

The Things We Keep by Sally Hepworth

Version: Kindle

Synopsis:

Anna Forster is only thirty-eight years old, but her mind is slowly slipping away from her. Armed only with her keen wit and sharp-eyed determination, she knows that her family is doing what they believe to be best when they take her to Rosalind House, an assisted living facility. But Anna has a secret: she does not plan on staying. She also knows there’s just one another resident who is her age, Luke. What she does not expect is the love that blossoms between her and Luke even as she resists her new life. As her disease steals more and more of her memory, Anna fights to hold on to what she knows, including her relationship with Luke.

Eve Bennett, suddenly thrust into the role of single mother to her bright and vivacious seven-year-old daughter, finds herself putting her culinary training to use at Rosalind house. When she meets Anna and Luke, she is moved by the bond the pair has forged. But when a tragic incident leads Anna’s and Luke’s families to separate them, Eve finds herself questioning what she is willing to risk to help them. Eve has her own secrets, and her own desperate circumstances that raise the stakes even higher.

Review:

I guess I have a penchant for books about characters with early onset Alzheimer’s, eh? But you know what they say, no two stories are the same and this holds true for The Things We Keep. 

What I really enjoyed about this novel was how it played with the connections that the characters had with each other, some frayed and some really, really tight. There’s a multitude of different players here. Obviously, you have Anna, who is only thirty-eight and dealing with a devastating diagnosis. But then there’s also Eve, a widow who is trying her best to pick up the pieces left behind after her husband’s suicide, one he committed after losing a bunch of people’s money in a Bernie Madoff-esque ponzi scheme and that includes her daughter, Clem. Clem is only eight, but she’s incredibly bright and she’s not immune to the comments being made about her father. Although she doesn’t quite grasp the whole picture, she understands that the man she thought she knew was not the man he was.

Lastly, there’s Luke, another patient at Rosalind House who, like Anna, is similarly suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s.

Despite their conditions, Anna and Luke find themselves drawn to each other, much to the chagrin of Anna’s family who informs Rosalind House to keep the two away from each other, but for Eve whose whole world has just been flipped upside down, that isn’t an easy task.

She sees how Luke and Anna care for each other and maybe it’s crazy, maybe it’s even a little selfish, but Eve needs something pure to believe in and hold onto right now, and that is the connection between Anna and Luke.

What would you do if you knew, instinctively, that being around a specific person could greatly enhance someone else’s life? Would you risk your job?

Would you still take that chance even if there was the smallest possibility that you could, in fact, be wrong?

After all, Anna’s memory is deteriorating rapidly. There’s no conclusive evidence that she – or Luke – even remember who the other is at any given point.

More importantly, for Eve, Anna and Luke’s wellbeing’s aren’t the only ones at stake here. First and foremost, she has to consider Clem. Her beautiful innocent daughter who has been through too much in her young life. Clem has a right to know the truth about her father, but knowing the truth could mar all of the wonderful memories she has of him.

I think while reading The Things We Keep, you’ll find yourself wondering more and more, when someone we love has done the unthinkable, how do we cope? What is worth fighting for? What is worth letting go of?

Finally, what are the things we try the hardest to keep?

Rating:

5 out of 5 stars.

What Was Mine by Helen Klein Ross

What Was Mine by Helen Klein Ross

Version: Hard Copy

Synopsis:

Lucy Wakefield is a seemingly ordinary woman who does something extraordinary in a desperate moment: she takes a baby girl from a shopping cart and raises her as her own. It’s a secret she manages to keep for over two decades—from her daughter, the babysitter who helped raise her, family, coworkers, and friends.

When Lucy’s now-grown daughter Mia discovers the devastating truth of her origins, she is overwhelmed by confusion and anger and determines not to speak again to the mother who raised her. She reaches out to her birth mother for a tearful reunion, and Lucy is forced to flee to China to avoid prosecution. What follows is a ripple effect that alters the lives of many and challenges our understanding of the very meaning of motherhood.

Review:

As a woman heading into my mid-30s, I understand how devastating and difficult infertility can be and I guess if I wrap my mind around it, I can even contemplate how it would drive a person to do the unthinkable, but that doesn’t mean I condone it.

And it doesn’t mean I enjoy reading about the fallout of said decision. A terrible terrible terrible decision I may add!

Basically Lucy has been trying for years to have a baby, but nothing has worked. Eventually she and her husband end up divorcing due to the stress of infertility. Lucy resigns herself to the fact that she will never have a baby. That is, until she happens upon an unattended infant in an IKEA store.

Cue illegal action taking via kidnapping! 

Of course Lucy goes back and forth with what she should do, blah, blah, blah, internal struggle, but you know the selfishness wins out and she keeps Natalie aka Mia, because why not? Let’s wreck more lives!

Can you tell that Lucy is not my favorite character?

Luckily for me, this doesn’t stay a secret forever and Mia gets a chance to reconnect with Marilyn, who hasn’t sen her daughter since that day in IKEA when she was four months old.

What Was Mine leaves you with a number of questions, a few of them notably being can you ever get back the time that was lost? and what happens when you can’t forgive, but you can’t forget either?

Rating:

3.5 out of 5 stars.

It Happens All the Time by Amy Hatvany

Trigger Warning/TW for rape/sexual assault

It Happens All the Time by Amy Hatvany

Version: Hard copy

Synopsis:

Amber Bryant and Tyler Hicks have been best friends since they were teenagers—trusting and depending on each other through some of the darkest periods of their young lives. And while Amber has always felt that their relationship is strictly platonic, Tyler has long harbored the secret desire that they might one day become more than friends.

Returning home for the summer after her college graduation, Amber begins spending more time with Tyler than she has in years. Despite the fact that Amber is engaged to her college sweetheart, a flirtation begins to grow between them. One night, fueled by alcohol and concerns about whether she’s getting married too young, Amber kisses Tyler.

What happens next will change them forever.

Review:

I’m not going to lie. This was a tough book to read. Be prepared to feel a lot of emotions. As you can probably guess from the synopsis and my trigger warning, this book tackles the topic of rape, so I can understand that it may be a book that some people will want to avoid altogether; however, I think it’s an important read.

Hatvany herself is a survivor of rape and as such, I think she handles the whole thing with nuance and delicacy. The story is told in dual narration style. From Amber’s point of view and from Tyler’s. I wasn’t sure how to feel with this style of narration. First of all, I haven’t read that many books where the main character is rape victim. For obvious reasons, but when I have, it’s been solely from the person who has been raped. So, it was a bit jarring reading Tyler’s thoughts and feelings. Although I guess for anyone who reads true crime or murder mysteries, maybe it isn’t so jarring? Anyway, Tyler’s version of what happened is not the same as Amber’s. It’s a gut punch reading this novel, especially considering the relationship between Amber and Tyler. They’re best friends. Tyler has been there for Amber so many times over the years. He loves her or so he claims. Which is why it’s a devastating read and a horrifying situation.

Amber wishes this were black and white, but like most things in life, it isn’t. It would be easier if the person who attacked Amber was a random guy that she could hate, one whose face was pure evil, like that of a monster. But it’s the one of her best friend. Isn’t that how it usually is though? Abusers don’t come with warnings. They’re nice and funny and charming. Until they’re not. We read fairytales and oftentimes, the villain is easily recognizable, but in real life, villains are usually the ones we hold nearest and dearest. It’s how they’re able to get close to us.

In conclusion, this is a powerful novel about what happens when the person you think you know best is the person who might hurt you the most and how you can begin to pick up the pieces and move on. If you even can.

Rating:

5 out of 5 stars.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

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Version: Kindle

Synopsis:

Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children and a house on the Cape, is a celebrated Harvard professor at the height of her career when she notices a forgetfulness creeping into her life. As confusion starts to cloud her thinking and her memory begins to fail her, she receives a devastating diagnosis: early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Fiercely independent, Alice struggles to maintain her lifestyle and live in the moment, even as her sense of self is being stripped away. In turns heartbreaking, inspiring, and terrifying, Still Alice captures in remarkable detail what it’s like to literally lose your mind…

Review:

Genova packs a walloped punch with this all too realistic tale of what it’s like to watch a family member or even worse, yourself, begin to come loose at the seams, stitch by stitch. You’d be hard pressed nowadays to find someone who hasn’t been affected in some way, shape, or form by Alzheimer’s or Dementia, but usually we find that happens when a person is elderly. Not at 50.

The grief Alice feels is only compounded by the fact that her early onset Alzheimer’s is genetic, which means that each of her three children have a fifty-fifty chance of inheriting it.

It’s ironic in a sense that we can take almost every precaution out there to protect ourselves. We can lock our doors, eat healthy, and exercise. We can talk openly with our spouses and children, go to therapy, and yet, there are just some things out there that we cannot prevent from happening. And maybe that’s what makes this story even more frightening than a thriller about serial killer or a rapist on the loose because at least with those types of stories, there’s a hope that those people can be caught and all the terror will stop.

But when the terror is caused by your own body, when you’re slowly deteriorating and all you have is time and yet, time is your greatest enemy, it feels like you’ll always be tormented.

Rating:

5 of 5 stars.

Overhaul!

Hey guys! Long time, no speak. I know. That’s very much on me. I’ve decided to do a bit of housekeeping and revamp this blog a bit and as such, I’ll be taking down my reviews and redoing them so please bear with me!

Thanks!