Review: Where She Went by Gayle Forman

Where She Went

Author: Gayle Forman

Publication Date: April 5th, 2011

Publisher: Dutton Juvenile

Genre: YA/Contemporary/Romance

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Synopsis:

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 Juilliard'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.

My Thoughts:Where she went is the dramatic close to everything. While the story is almost as packed with emotion as If I stay, we all, get the closure really needed.


If I stay left us majorly hanging, Where she went picks up 3 years later so just like in If I stay we are getting most of the story through flashbacks. This is definitely a unique way of writing the stories I think and Forman pulls it off so well. We are always moving forward in the present with constant reminders and stories of why things are they way the are now, and how they came to be. We get so much insight into the characters and their lives and experiences  that I think it's pretty much impossible not to become emotionally attached to them, to fall in love with them even. Which makes reading through this book all the more intense, as emotions always seem to be riding high, as are we.


While a lot of elements are the same in this story, a lot is also different. This time the story is told by Adam instead of Mia. I always enjoy when a story gives you one event seen from completely different points of views. It gives everything much more depth and meaning. So we get to re-experience a lot, and see it in a different light, with different levels and types of pain. Adam comes into the story pretty much a changed man. Shortly after the accident Mia just kind walked out of his life, leaving him pretty much devastated. He has not handled everything well at all, and it's effecting him in a majorly negative way. Except in one area, his emotions have allowed him to write some incredible music which has propelled him and his band into stardom incredibly fast. But now that Adam is here, in the spotlight, he wishes he wasn't and it's yet another thing he can't quite handle.  All seems to be a downward spiral until a chance meeting between Mia and Adam. Adam stumbles upon a show being played by Mia. She is always becoming quite popular in the classical music industry with her Cello playing.

The rest of the story is them trying to both apologize for how things ended up, but at the same time they probably wouldn't change how it went. Will they be able to work around the rift that came between them, or will this just be the final goodbye that they both needed? I'll admit at the start of the book I was quite disappointed with how things worked out, but as the story played out and Adam and Mia re-discovered each other and endured yet another emotional battle together I realized that it was perfect. That things had to work out the way they did for the story to be as great as it was.  This is a real love story against real odds, something I haven't read in awhile and I really enjoyed it. While I did enjoy the first book a bit more, this one is still incredibly good. I definitely recommend you read them both, it's a story you won't soon forget.