I Was Here by Gayle Forman Published by Viking Juvenile on January 27, 2015
Genres: Contemporary YA, Suicide
Pages: 288
Format: Hardcover
Source: Bought it
Amazon • Barnes & Noble • Goodreads
Cody and Meg were inseparable.
Two peas in a pod.
Until . . . they weren’t anymore.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, who broke Meg’s heart. 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.
It seems like I’ve been reading a lot of books about suicide lately. Do you guys feel this way? I can’t say that I mind it, as upsetting and depressing as it may be, since I think it’s an important thing to discuss. These are things that people of all ages can benefit from, I think. If I’m ever in a place of needing to recommend thought-provoking books about it, I can definitely say I’d include I WAS HERE on my list. Gayle Forman excels at writing about those big moments when things in a young person’s life change forever. She’s great at exploring the feelings and the aftermath because she’s frank and thoughtful. I WAS HERE turned out to be not exactly what I was expecting, but it still made me think about things. Things I wasn’t anticipating, and that’s always the sign of a good book.
I WAS HERE is the story of what happens after. Cody and Meg were besties in their small town in Washington state. Meg is described as one of those vibrant girls who can make all kinds of friends. Big personality. Cody is quieter and comes from a less stable home. They’re still best friends. More like family, even: Cody spends a lot of time with Meg’s parents and younger brother. Things take a devastating turn when Cody and Meg’s family receive suicide notes via email and discover that Meg has killed herself in a motel room while away at college. Cody volunteers to go to her shared house in Seattle to collect Meg’s things and winds up trying to come to terms with what drove Meg to drink cleaning fluid, and to try and reconcile the Meg she knew and the one she must’ve been in truth.
I’ve never personally dealt with suicide, but I do know people who have, and the feelings of confusion, sadness, and guilt I saw in them are mirrored in Cody, who is at such a loss in so many ways. She’s experiencing the sudden loss of her best friend, and she’s in the dark as to why Meg thought suicide was the only path. Cody has to confront the fact that her best friend wasn’t quite the person she thought she was, and that’s remarkably hard to do when you can’t ASK THEM. I liked Cody. I understood her feelings about Meg. Grieving is kind of a selfish thing, no? Especially in situations like this? Why didn’t I see it? Why didn’t she tell me? Did she not trust me? Could I have been a better friend? Was it something I said or did? All of these questions and more color Cody’s experiences in I WAS HERE.
As things about Meg come into greater focus, Cody is drawn to a young man named Ben McAlister. He’s the lead singer in a local band who, according to Meg’s emails, knew Meg pretty well until something happened that seemed to drive Meg further into her spiral. I appreciated the way Gayle Forman made Ben and Cody’s relationship important and yet not. Obviously, Cody relies on him to fill in some ever-widening gaps in the last few months of Meg’s life. What starts as a very antagonistic relationship becomes something less so, perhaps to do with cats (adorbs, btw). But the relationship that really takes center stage in I WAS HERE is Meg and Cody’s. I liked that Cody and Ben were secondary. Good secondary, for sure.
I mentioned before that I WAS HERE made me think about things I wasn’t anticipating, and that’s really the truth. As Ben and Cody unfurl the mystery of some missing emails of Meg’s and a locked file on her computer, the questions I WAS HERE asks become slightly less about suicide and more about death in general. Choices. There’s so much in this book about depression, of course, but also about taking control of your life, or your death. Really thought-provoking stuff, and I can’t imagine many authors better at addressing these things than Gayle Forman.
I know that most people–me included–are used to reading Gayle Forman’s books and swooning because of the romances. Ben and Cody have their moments, but really I WAS HERE is probably the least “Gayle” of her books that I’ve read in that sense, but I didn’t miss it. I was too caught up in Cody and her confusion and anger because they felt so real.
I WAS HERE wound up being more than I expected (reading Gayle Forman’s Author’s Note at the end was particularly enlightening) and while I wasn’t my absolute favorite book of hers, I still thought it was very good, very important, and very well-written. One of the best things about books is that they are outlets that lead to discussions, and there are few as necessary as the one Gayle starts in I WAS HERE.
I’m still so nervous about reading I Was Here! I mean, I’m excited because it’s GAYLE, but I’m nervous because it sounds heavier than any of her other novels. Still, I love that you’ve pointed out how relevant and important the discussion of depression, suicide and grief can be, and it should be interesting to read this one. Can’t wait to check it out for myself!
I liked this book, but I didn’t LOVE it… I think at the time I had been reading so many heavy/depressing novels, I couldn’t get into it. Maybe I’ll enjoy it more if I read it again later…