I Was Here
Gayle Forman
Release Date: January 27, 2015
Publisher: Viking Books For Young Readers
Pages: 270
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
My Thoughts:
Meg and Cody have been inseparable since kindergarten, so when Cody gets Meg’s suicide email she has no idea what to think. They were supposed to know everything about each other, so why did Cody have absolutely no idea Meg was in this much pain? When she is asked to pack up Meg’s things at her college apartment, she stumbles upon an encrypted file Meg failed to delete off her laptop. Once Cody is able to open the file, she becomes obsessed with figuring out what all the documents inside mean and what role, if any, they had in Meg’s suicide.
This deals with some pretty heavy topics—depression and suicide—but ultimately this is a story about forgiveness. Cody is angry and lost after Meg’s suicide. She feels responsible and guilty because she wasn’t there for Meg during her lowest, but she also feels betrayed and doesn’t know how to forgive Meg for leaving her. She becomes obsessed with finding someone to blame because she does not believe that her beautiful, amazing, full-of-life best friend could have consciously chosen to end her own life. She discovers a lot about Meg she didn’t previously know and understands that in order to move on from this she must not only forgive Meg, but she has to forgive herself as well.
Cody and Ben fell flat for me as characters and so did their romance. There are brief moments where they connect and bond and whatever, but they spend more time apart and not talking/fighting then falling in love (at least in my opinion). I just didn’t feel the chemistry that is so common in all of Forman’s other books with these two. But falling in love really isn’t the focal point of this story so I guess that’s why the romance didn’t have to be as well developed.
I will read anything Gayle Forman writes because I absolutely loved If I Stay/Where She Went and Just One Day/Just One Year. All of her books are different but what stays constant is how emotionally gripping they are. I think I might have started this with my expectations set a bit too high because, although I liked the book I didn’t think it was amazing. I didn’t connect as much with these characters and this story as I have with all her other books.
Meg and Cody have been inseparable since kindergarten, so when Cody gets Meg’s suicide email she has no idea what to think. They were supposed to know everything about each other, so why did Cody have absolutely no idea Meg was in this much pain? When she is asked to pack up Meg’s things at her college apartment, she stumbles upon an encrypted file Meg failed to delete off her laptop. Once Cody is able to open the file, she becomes obsessed with figuring out what all the documents inside mean and what role, if any, they had in Meg’s suicide.
This deals with some pretty heavy topics—depression and suicide—but ultimately this is a story about forgiveness. Cody is angry and lost after Meg’s suicide. She feels responsible and guilty because she wasn’t there for Meg during her lowest, but she also feels betrayed and doesn’t know how to forgive Meg for leaving her. She becomes obsessed with finding someone to blame because she does not believe that her beautiful, amazing, full-of-life best friend could have consciously chosen to end her own life. She discovers a lot about Meg she didn’t previously know and understands that in order to move on from this she must not only forgive Meg, but she has to forgive herself as well.
Cody and Ben fell flat for me as characters and so did their romance. There are brief moments where they connect and bond and whatever, but they spend more time apart and not talking/fighting then falling in love (at least in my opinion). I just didn’t feel the chemistry that is so common in all of Forman’s other books with these two. But falling in love really isn’t the focal point of this story so I guess that’s why the romance didn’t have to be as well developed.
I will read anything Gayle Forman writes because I absolutely loved If I Stay/Where She Went and Just One Day/Just One Year. All of her books are different but what stays constant is how emotionally gripping they are. I think I might have started this with my expectations set a bit too high because, although I liked the book I didn’t think it was amazing. I didn’t connect as much with these characters and this story as I have with all her other books.
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