punk rock

Where She Went is a sequel and this review will contain spoilers for the first book, If I Stay.

It’s three years after Mia’s accident, shortly after which Mia left Adam behind and moved on to life as a virtuoso violinist at Juillard. Adam has become a celebrity – a rock star with an actress girlfriend. But he is far from happy, suffering from anxiety and having fallen out with his bandmates.

Then Adam has one night to himself in New York City before he goes on tour, and almost by chance, he goes to see Mia perform. She invites him backstage and as they both have one last night in the city before they go to separate corners of the world, they decide to spend it together. But they can’t avoid discussing the painful past.

There were definitely things I liked about Where She Went. I was interested to find out how Mia coped with life after the accident, and how Adam failed to cope. I thought that Where She Went was a good exploration of the ways that people deal with traumatic events and build their futures afterwards. I loved Mia as a character because she seems so real. She’s kind and loving but she’s not a pushover or a doormat – she’s really strong and she takes care of herself first. I think in that way she’s a role model for all of us. I felt so sad for Adam, but hopeful that he could turn things around. I was rooting for them to work out where they had gone wrong, and to heal themselves and each other. There is a really strong emotional journey that the characters – particularly Adam – go through, and as a reader I was taken along for the ride, starting off depressed by the way Adam has changed and going through his following emotional ups and downs with him. I also liked the way that music tied everything together – music was also a pivotal part of If I Stay and one of my favourite things about it.

However.

I have this issue with books and paranormal activities. I can read fantasy novels, urban fantasy, paranormal, magical realism, etc, no problem. But when a book with some ambigious paranormal activity (I’ll call it ‘magic’ from here on out) suddenly becomes unambigious, it can fall flat for me. If something’s happening and we don’t know if it’s magic or if someone’s imagining it, I don’t mind the suspense. If it becomes clear that it is supposed to be magic and there’s a proper explanation after that point, that’s fine. If there’s no explanation, if we’re just supposed to accept the existence of this magic – then I become uncomfortable and usually dislike the rest of the book.

It’s really hard to explain this without spoilers. But basically, I think that although I had no problem suspending my disbelief when reading If I Stay, where the whole conceit of the novel is that Mia’s disembodied spirit is watching her family and friends’ reactions to the accident, when that idea got taken outside of that one novel and introduced to the ‘real world’ in Where She Went, I had problems suspending my disbelief.

Also, although I liked the idea of it all happening over just 24 hours, in practice I wasn’t sure all those revelations and decisions were realistic. I think that in reality people separated like Mia and Adam would need to take more time to rebuild their connection than they do.

After I finished and adored If I Stay, I couldn’t wait to read the sequel. I don’t think I could have stopped and never read Where She Went. I wanted more. Yet it turned out that I didn’t need more. It’s not that I disliked Where She Went, I just think that it was was unnecessary for me. Not unnecessary full stop by any means, just unnecessary for me. It was, as I said above, interesting to read, but I didn’t believe it the same way I believed If I Stay.

Maybe it’s merely a clash of personality and book. Plenty of other readers have loved Where She Went, and odds are you will too. I am still looking forward to reading Gayle Forman’s previous and future books. But if your reader’s mind works like mine – you’re not alone.

Two reviews that I read prior to Where She Went:
Fluttering Butterflies (with author interview)
So Many Books, So Little Time

It’s a snowy day in Oregon, and so Mia and her brother Teddy have the day off school. Her father is a teacher, and her mother doesn’t want to be the only one working, so they decide to make the most of the day and go visit some friends. They all get into the car, but, on the road, a truck crashes into their vehicle.

The next thing Mia knows, she’s standing at the side of the road, looking at the wreck of the car. But how can she be standing there, when moments before she was inside the car, pretending to be playing cello along to the radio? She finds her body, and realises that she’s some kind of ghost. All she can do is follow as her body is taken away to hospital, watching and listening to doctors, nurses, relatives, and friends as they visit her. Or that’s what she thinks at first. But soon she finds out that she has a decision to make. To follow her parents, or to live on, to stay.

If I Stay has been a huge hit amongst book bloggers, so I had decided a while ago that it was something that I wanted to read. However, I wasn’t expecting to like it as much as I did. I don’t usually choose to read books that I know will be sad. I don’t mind if I’m reading a book that happens to have some tear-inducing sections, but I wouldn’t ordinarily pick out a book about death, for instance. Just the title of Before I Die makes me cringe away! I guess I have this preconceived notion that books about an issue like death will be bleak and depressing all the way through.

To say that If I Stay is a sad book to read would be the understatement of the flipping decade! Mia has a wonderful family, and they die! She has her whole life ahead of her, and she’s considering leaving it behind! Tears came to my eyes at least four times whilst I was reading it. However, If I Stay was not relentlessly sad all the way through. When I was reading about Mia’s family, or her relationship with Adam, I would forget for a couple of pages that it was all doomed, and enjoy it as naturally as I would if those scenes had appeared in any other novel. But then we’d be back to Mia at the hospital, and the tragedy would seem all the more tragic. Also, because Mia’s friends and remaining family members were so brilliant, I couldn’t help but hope that she wouldn’t choose to go. I wanted her to stay, as hard as that would be for her to live through, and that kept me reading on.

I really loved the characters. I liked that the teenage characters were relatively mature (though it made the events all the more devastating). I adored all the quirks, from Mia’s dad’s bow ties, to her grandmother’s obsession with angels and returning spirits in animal forms. Even the nurses had individual traits, which made every one that much more memorable, and made the story seem fully fleshed out. I also really liked the role that music played in the story, and the writing was beautiful, with the descriptions and Mia’s thoughts balanced out nicely by dialogue.

I was gripped from the start of If I Stay to the finish, and I am looking forward to reading more books by the author. I would recommend it to anyone who doesn’t mind crying a little bit whilst reading!

Review by Luisa at Chicklish

Review at So Many Books, So Little Time