Me Since You

by Laura Wiess

“Laura Wiess’s masterful prose kept me turning the pages. This is the first book in a very long time that made me say, ‘Wish I’d written this’” (Ellen Hopkins, author of Crank, on Such a Pretty Girl).

Laura Wiess captures the visceral emotion of a girl’s journey from innocence to devastating loss and, ultimately, to a strange and unexpected kind of understanding—in this beautiful and painfully honest new novel.

Are there any answers when someone you love makes a tragic choice?

Before and After. That’s how Rowan Areno sees her life now. Before: she was a normal sixteen-year-old—a little too sheltered by her police officer father and her mother. After: everything she once believed has been destroyed in the wake of a shattering tragedy, and every day is there to be survived.

If she had known, on that Friday in March when she cut school, that a random stranger’s shocking crime would have traumatic consequences, she never would have left campus. If the crime video never went viral, maybe she could have saved her mother, grandmother—and herself—from the endless replay of heartache and grief.

Finding a soul mate in Eli, a witness to the crime who is haunted by losses of his own, Rowan begins to see there is no simple, straightforward path to healing wounded hearts. Can she learn to trust, hope, and believe in happiness again?

• ISBN10: 1439193991
• ISBN13: 9781439193990
• Publish Date: 18 February 2014
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: MTV Books
• Format: eBook (EPUB)
• Pages: 368
• Language: English

Reviews

[adarkershadeofrosie]

✨ A Darker Shade of Rosie + Twitter ✨

Thank you NetGalley for lending me a copy of this book in exchange for a review!

→ LIKED: The book is split into two parts: the before, and the after. • This book seriously had me in tears because of a similar experience I had in my family. Though the way of death was the exact opposite, it still put a strain on my family and way of life. • From just reading the Goodreads blurb, you can't quite tell what the books has in store for your feelings, but believe me, they get pretty shredded. • In the after, while Rowan's family crumbles around her, it hurt to see her push everyone away. Her best friend, Nadia (though, really, I started to despise her - she was selfish), Eli, and even her mom sometimes. They both hurt inside, but as I can attest from personal experience, everyone grieves differently.

→ DISLIKED: The love interest felt pretty scarce in the after, it seemed like. I know Rowan was healing and Eli was doing his own thing, but I wished there were more of him. But what he did was really respectable and you could really tell he cared for Rowan by the way he was around her.

→ CONCLUSION: I really appreciated the closure the author gave to us, and to Rowan! If it hadn't ended like it did, I would've been really upset. It was a good book, and I don't regret the soggy eyes it gave me!

[Leah]

When I spotted Me Since You on Edelweiss, I thought it sounded really interesting, and I was quite intrigued as to know what happened that changed Rowan’s life. After all, the synopsis itself is hardly a walk in the park, so I couldn’t help but wonder how Rowan’s life could possibly get any worse (for the record, it could, and it did) and I couldn’t wait to get stuck in. I have to tell you right now that Me Since You is probably one of the most emotional books I have ever read. It all started out so swimmingly, and the first half of the novel was really interesting, really great, and then it suddenly did a 180 and became a different novel entirely, it was as if I had started reading one book and by the time I’d finished it was an entirely different novel which I have never, ever had happen before, but it was amazing. So amazing that by the end of the novel I was in tears, floods of tears.

Rowan’s world implodes the day she decides to skip school, because she gets caught by her cop father and after he’s dropped her off at home and given her a stern lecture, he’s called to an incident on the overpass by their house, where a man is ready to jump off the overpass, along with his baby son. Rowan’s dad Nick is unable to stop the man from jumping and the video of him trying to talk the man down goes viral. Suddenly everybody has an opinion of Nick Areno, and most of them are opinions neither Rowan nor her dad want to hear. There’s inquests to be had, everybody wants their pound of flesh because Nick was unable to save baby Sammy. Just when Rowan doesn’t think her life could get any worse it does and everything that came before it was child’s play. Her only hope of pulling through this difficult time is Eli, the one shining light in an otherwise dark world, but is love enough to save you when you feel like you’re drowning?

I have to hold my hands up and say that I knew something bad was going to happen in Me Since You. I even called it. I wouldn’t even say it’s a secret, per se, but I will leave it up to the reader to decide. It definitely felt like a ‘Before’ and ‘After’ novel. It was as if we met two Rowan’s. The first is the happy Rowan, being a typical teenager, skipping school, getting in trouble, hanging with her best friend Nadia, and suddenly that all changes on a dime and we meet a new, more troubled Rowan. It was like reading a book about someone with a split personality, but grief can do that to you like nothing else can, and it was all so real. I know that this novel was fiction, I know that it wasn’t really all happening, but it all felt way too real for me. It truly felt like this was a non-fiction account about grief because it hit me sideways. It’s only after I’ve finished the novel that I see just how deep this novel was, how Rowan really did go on a journey, and how grief can do unimaginable things to a person, like make you take in 10 stray cats!

Laura Weiss is a freaking genius storyteller. Me Since You put me through the emotional wringer like no novel has before. I actually feel grief myself upon finishing the novel, believe it or not because I felt like I was with Rowan for such a long amount of time. Rowan was just so real to me, I wanted to climb into the book and give her a hug and tell her, rather cliche-ly, that time will heal things, maybe not properly, maybe not forever, but slowly she will get better and I liked that Eli was there to help her, but he wasn’t overpowering. He didn’t overstep his mark, he knew when to step back and wait for Rowan to come to him and that made their romance all the sweeter, because it wasn’t forced. Their magical non-prom night before everything changed was magical, but what came after was even better because it was exactly what Rowan needed and I liked that she got to get to that conclusion without being pushed. The last thing you need pushing in your face when you’re reading a book about grief is an over the top love story that tries to push out the important meaning of the book and I am so glad Wiess didn’t do that. She let it evolve naturally.

My only complaint – and it isn’t even a complaint about the book, it’s about a selfish, horrible character, is that I was horrified by Nadia’s reaction to everything Rowan was going through. This is your best friend! You do not, under any circumstances, do what Nadia did to Rowan. That’s callous, that’s cruel, and it was just plain awful. I kept waiting for her to come back with her tail between her legs, and I’m sort of glad she didn’t because Rowan deserves a far better friend than Nadia. She was awful. You support someone when they’re grieving, you do not push them to just get over it as if it’s nothing. I spent a while grieving my dog when he died late last year, and Nadia probably would have expected me to get over it the day he died. She needed a good slap for her insensitivity. I wasn’t sure how I felt about Me Since You until I reached the end, when I was crying my heart out. I can’t even tell you why, not really. Something just broke inside me those last few pages, and I had tears streaming down my face. I loved this book more than I ever expected to and it felt like after I’d finished that I could take a deep breath. It felt like I’d been holding my breath the entire novel. Me Since You is just amazing, I have to warn you that it will take you on an emotional rollercoaster, but the payoff is so worth it and to get to know these characters even a little is so special. Wiess is a genius, and I bow down to her for this amazing book!

[Suz @ Bookish Revelations]

One of the most beautiful heart rending stories that I have read, Me Since You, is emotionally charged and full of so much bravery and courage in the face of overwhelming pain.

Full review coming soon.

[KitsuneBae]

Actual Rating: 3.5 stars

For more details, please visit: Thoughts and Pens.

The slow paced plot, my inability to connect with Eli, the MC's father, and the other secondary characters, and the fact that it didn't manage to provoke my tear glands are the reasons why this book is only getting a 3.5 star rating from me.

[ellieroth]

El Extraño Gato del cuento

Me gustan los dramones, la gente que me conoce lo sabe, sobre todo este tipo de dramas, en Goodreads tiene la etiqueta "Muerte", lo vi y salte a pedírsela a la editorial. El libro me sorprendió de una trágica manera, cuando terminé de leerlo pensé "¿Y ahora como lo reseño sin entrar en spoilers?"

Este es uno de esos libros donde vas con una idea clara, o sinopsis engañosas, o tan bien hechas que luego te destruyen el corazón, además con la portada pensé que era solo un libro dramático simplecito, que me haría derramar una lágrima y luego quedaría como un buen recuerdo. Laura Weiss te va dando la historia de una manera tan sutil, hasta el punto en el cual llegas a pensar que todo ya está dicho, te da tranquilidad lectora, pero luego reírse malvadamente y quitarte todas las esperanzas de que este mundo es bueno y justo. Okay, quizá estoy siendo demasiado dramática, es solo que el libro lo merece.

Los personajes están bien construidos, hay detalles de los cuales Rowan nos hace notar de la gente a su alrededor, de como se comportan, que en el personal habría pasado por alto, que te hacen pensar en la manera de comportarse de las personas a tu alrededor. Me gustó también que los personajes secundarios no estuvieron todo el tiempo pendiente de la protagonista, es que ¿qué haces cuando ya no puedes hacer nada más? Puede ser... No, tacha eso, algunas de las acciones de las personas alrededor de Rowan fueron crueles, solo que a veces, debes seguir con tu vida, de la forma en la que decidas, a veces también sin importar qué o quién dejas atrás. Lo hemos hecho, al menos yo lo he hecho, dejar a personas que en lugar de hacerme sentir mejor, me hacían sentir mal, a veces puede llamarse cobarde, pero también puede llamarse supervivencia.

Me Since You es un libro que me ha tocado mucho la fibra sensible, no se que haría si estuviera en el lugar de Rowan, aunque lo que más me afectó fue el hecho de que estuve y estoy (a veces, peleo mucho con eso) en lo que desencadena todo la historia.

Reseña Completa: El Extraño Gato del cuento

[Ashley]

Me Since You is hands down the most powerful and emotional book I have ever read. This book ripped me to emotional shreds. I have never cried so much over one book in my entire life.

If you don't like sad books, turn away now. Me Since You is not just sad—it's devastating. The genuine loss and hopelessness that drips from the words in this book will cripple you a thousand times over. I read this book in increments, and each time I picked up the book again, the tears immediately started up again.

Me Since You was so real and so honest—I think that's why it had such a strong effect on me. It almost read like a real journal than a fictional story. I felt like all the events in this book really happened, and maybe even I was part of them. I got so involved and so invested, and that's why it brought tears to my eyes every single time I turned the page.

What I love about this book is that Laura Wiess didn't take the easy way out, which I almost expected. You have a book about loss and grief, with the clear mention of a romance in the synopsis. But, it didn't turn out how I expected. I imagined the cliché story where a girl's father commits suicide, she seeks comfort in the arms of the understanding boy her age, and he solves all her problems and guides her through this troubling time.

Nope.

The romance did not dominate and take over Me Since You. I expected it to kind of take over the whole grief/loss aspect of the book, but it totally didn't. In fact, the romance is only a subtle accent to this story. It largely focuses on working through the stages of grief. Rowan is confused, lost, upset, angry, and finally learns to accept the tragedy. Although Eli does have some involvement, he's not the focus. Most of the story is Rowan struggling to deal with this on her own, because she doesn't immediately run into the arms of the hot guy she met. She's scared, sad, and alone, and pulls inward, as you'd kind of expect from someone suffering a loss like this.

So although I loved the romance (it was sooooo sweet!!), I loved how it didn't turn Me Since You into a romance book. The story was still very much about loss, death, family, and acceptance.

I feel like I can't even really convey the number this book did on me. It completely OWNED me. It ripped me into so many pieces. I had to fight back tears while reading the ending on the train. I swear to god, people were probably looking at me and wondering, "I wonder who in her family just died..."

Me Since You made me feel all the feels. I was completely part of the story, to the point where it dominated my thoughts even when I wasn't reading. I was yelling at Rowan's father, "WHY WHY WHY?? I DON'T UNDERSTAND!!" I was 100% there with Rowan, struggling to understand, fighting to accept, and lost somewhere between grief and anger.

Anyone who reads my reviews regularly will know that I don't usually comment on writing style. By Laura's prose was so gorgeous. That's one of the things that really pulled me in and made this book feel real and genuine. The words were so heavy with emotion and I practically got lost in it. I swear to you, they were real thoughts from a real grieving person.

Unless you hate cry books or can't stand sadness in stories, I recommend Me Since You to EVERYONE! You will feel EVERYTHING! Most of it will be sad, heart-wrenching, and confusing. You won't understand why Rowan's father chose to leave his family. WHY WHY WHY??? How could he do that? You will feel immense grief, an overwhelming sense of unfairness, and deep, tragic loss. This book is that powerful. It will shake you to your core and you will feel the effects for weeks.

One of the best books I've ever read. Period.