Review: Where She Went by Gayle Forman

On reading the blurb of this book, I imagined that Mia and Adam would meet in New York, have sex and then they would go their separate ways, leaving Adam to stew over everything that had happened for the rest of the book. However, this book was not that and I am so pleased with what it turned out to be.

I read 'If I Stay' while on a school trip to another country; the sad tones helping to distract me from the fears I was facing. 'If I Stay' was the sort of tragic high school romance book that could do that, but 'Where She Went' seemed to be something much more adult, something that you really had to plunge yourself into. Mia and Adam were no longer kids in high school facing the loss of their loved ones. Over the time that had elapsed between the two novels, they had grown, not past what had happened, but far enough away from it that they were starting to make sense of the situations they were in.

When the past and present overlap in a novel, it can sometimes be confusing. Yet, here each anecdote of a past event fitted in so precisely with what was happening in the present that it actually made the story fit together better. Having the past three years of Adam's life, as well as a few bits from before then, told while the story was still going on, I feel, was the best way to tell this tale because it gave a subtle understanding through the whole book, so you are left with the full picture at the end.

Having this book from Adam's perspective was one of the most interesting things with this novel, to me. He's older than Mia, has different likes, dislikes and interests and views the world differently to how she does. The phrase 'you never really know someone until you take a walk in their shoes' springs to mind and that is something that I absolutely loved in this novel. Adam is certainly not the perfect person, but by seeing what he sees and experiencing what he experiences, you can start to understand his imperfections.

With the majority of the book being set over two days, I would have thought that it would hold the novel back, yet here it was executed well. By the end of the night that Mia and Adam spent together, I felt that I understood the characters more than I would have been able to if it was set over a longer time period. It meant that I could perfectly justify their actions when they decided to drop everything, at least for a little while, for each other.

Overall, I adored this book, hence how I read it with such speed, but I could not give it five stars because I do not feel that it was a five star book. To be that, it has to have something extra that this book just did not give to me However, it has given me the best possible closure from the ending of the first book in this duology.

Though, I am left with one burning question; did Adam ever give that guy his iPod back?

(Goodreads parallel)