My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I admit, in spite of everything I’d heard, I really didn’t think Where She Went would live up to If I Stay. I’m very happy to say It did.
(The mere existence of this book is a spoiler for If I Stay. I try not to go into to many details, but if you haven’t read If I Stay yet, go and read it now. It’s that good. This review will be here when you finish).
Where She Went sets up another unusual situation, following up on the events of If I Stay.
Mia has moved on with her life. To the outside world, it looks like Adam has as well, but he hasn’t. He’s outwardly successful (rock-star successful, literally), but he’s really having trouble with, well, everything.
Where She Went has one important thing in common with If I Stay– an incredible character portrait. I have a hard time with young men in books, and I didn’t really think I would find Adam sympathetic, let alone compelling, even though I did like him when I first met him.
His character was compelling, and his story interesting, and yet he was completely believable. He was bewildered by the path he’d been sent down. He channeled his anger into rock songs, and followed them to success with a band that didn’t end up being the tight knit family he’d naively expected.
There was enough obnoxious rock star behavior to be realistic, and enough of what what going on in his head to understand why he behaved that way. And (channeling the male member of my book club),his thoughts weren’t detailed meta analysis of his life and that of everyone around him, but rather a continuing pit of emotion and questions about why he ended up .
Any fan of If I Stay should read this book immediately. If you haven’t read If I Stay, fix that immediately.
This copy of Where She Went was provided to Pam @ Bookalicious for review. She was kind enough to loan it to me, since I was anxious to read it.
