ARC Early Review: Where She Went

Where She Went by  Gayle Forman

Releases: April 5, 2011 

Publisher: Dutton Juvenile

Pages: 258 Hardcover

Young Adult

Overall: 5+
|If I Stay Website| |Author Twitter|

It's been three years since the devastating accident ... three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life forever.

Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Julliard's rising star and Adam is LA tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia's home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future - and each other.

Told from Adam's point of view in the spare, lyrical prose that defined If I Stay, Where She Went explores the devastation of grief, the promise of new hope, and the flame of rekindled romance.  Synopsis via Goodreads

My Thoughts:

Writing this review is even harder then writing the review for If I Stay, which took me over a month to write.

Rather then picking up directly where If I Stay left off, Where She Went picks up three years later and this time it is Adam who guides us from his spot in stardom with his band, Shooting Star.  Adam was almost unrecognizable at first but that laid the wood work for the emotional roller coaster that was this not-even-sad book.  I mean, really, how does one cry when the book isn't really that sad.  

Who knew the stepping stones for Where She Went were not only Mia's accident and Adam and Mia's mutual love for music, even if from different spectrums, but Adam's promise,

"If you stay, I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll quit the band; go with you to New York. But if you need me to go away, I’ll do that too. .. And that would suck, but I’ll do it. I can lose you like that, if I don’t lose you today. I’ll let you go. If you stay." 

At the risk of sounding extremely vague Mia's character was nothing compared to the complexity of Adam's.  The weight of his voice, his emotions, and the way that one promise paved the path for what was his life, all contributed to this extremely raw and emotional read.  Even being from Adam's point-of-view, through his eyes I was still able to see the emotions of others, for as off track as Adam was painted in his story I was still able to pick through his eyes and piece together the emotions that mattered.

Gayle Forman truly is brilliant with If I Stay and now Where She Went.  She give us two books that formed one extremely moving, thorough, story.  With having had both Mia and Adam's points of views I was able to see all sides of these characters, piecing together the story of their lives and the weight of their love and how it affected them.  Gayle concluded Where She Went beautifully, as well as the story of Mia and Adam.  Even if it wasn't straight out of a fairy tale.   

Cover: 5
Characters: 5

Plot: 5
Re-Readable: YES!
Overall: 5+