I Was Here

by Gayle Forman

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of If I Stay comes "a heartbreaking novel about coping with loss" (People).
 
When her best friend, Meg, commits suicide by drinking a bottle of industrial-strength cleaner alone in a motel room, Cody is understandably shocked and devastated. She and Meg shared everything—so how did she miss the signs of Meg's depression? 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, and some secrets of his own. 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 a pitch-perfect blend of mystery, tragedy, and romance. Gayle Forman has given us an unflinchingly honest portrait of the bravery that it takes to live after devastating loss."
—Stephen Chbosky, author of the #1 New York Times bestselling The Perks of Being a Wallflower

• ISBN10: 0451471474
• ISBN13: 9780451471475
• Publish Date: 27 January 2015
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Viking Books for Young Readers
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 288
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780451471475

Reviews

"You had a pile of rocks, and you cleaned them up pretty and make a necklace. Meg got jewels, and she hung herself with them." (Tricia Reynolds)

1)Mystery has always been my first love. It's the books that I've read ever since I could read and has always intrigued me.
2)I always like books that deal with life and death.
3)I'm always attracted to book that involve suicide or people who die and leaves clues about their death and what they left behind (morbid, but true).
4)I love books about people who find out who they are and what they want from life.
These are four things that I love when it comes to books. These are four things that I expected from I Was Here and to some extent, it did deliver.

Cody, is the main character and narrator of I Was Here. Her best friend, Meg commits suicide and she has to try to deal with it along with finding out unexpected things about Meg.

I liked Cody as a character. She had a no-nonsense attitude and I found her mean nature, anger and guilt over Meg's death understandable and utterly believable. Cody's relationship with her mother and the manner in which it develops - from indifference to love and understanding - was something that I loved. However, Cody's relationship with Meg and Ben were upsetting.

Meg commits suicide before the book starts. Cody and Meg are best friends and at one point Cody even calls Meg a sister, but I didn't feel that their friendship was epic. Cody doesn't know about Meg, who she was (especially when she was in college),what her life was like and didn't even bother to find out. Their friendship felt flat. Cody also talks about how Meg was amazing, charismatic, charming and special. But, because Meg died before the book, I wasn't able to meet her and understand what made her likable. Cody was basically telling me who Meg was, but I didn't get to see this personality for myself. This means that Meg's death and the aftermath of it, made no impression on me.

I also felt extreme hate towards Ben and Cody's problematic relationship.
First problem: Ben had a relationship with Meg. Don't even get me started on how wrong I found his relationship with Cody after that!
Second problem: Ben is a cliche' bad-boy. He smokes, sings in a band, is a player and douche-bag. Don't get me wrong? I love my bad boys, but they have to have a heart. Ben didn't have one!
Third problem: Every interaction between Cody and Ben had literally no sparks, no chemistry, NOTHING!
Fourth problem: Ben is willing to leave his bad-boy ways because of Cody. Oh please!
Final problem: How I felt about their relationship? I didn't even care about it!

But lets deal with the theme that this book revolves around, suicide. I wanted this book to show how Meg's suicide affects her family, her friends, her community and most importantly Cody and I Was Here succeeded in this. I wanted to gain new information about suicide from this book. I did and it was damn scary! The suicide support groups, the thoughts of Cody imagining Meg ending her life and the manner in which Cody kinda-falls into imagining suicide made me shudder. However, this book deals with committing suicide and while it's an important thing to deal with, this book provides methods and information about committing suicide that someone could potentially misuse. But, I really did feel that this theme was handled effectively.

This book disappointed me with many of the characterization aspects, but I really loved the way in which the theme of suicide was handled!

"Anything that kills hope is a sin." (Richard)

[Sam@WLABB]

This book is dark. This book starts after Cody finds out her best friend has committed suicide. Cody goes on a journey to find out why Meg took her own life, when she appeared to have it all. As she is searching for answers about Meg, Cody actually re-discovers herself. She has ups and downs and goes to some really dark places, but she grew. In fact, many of the characters in the book experienced a lot of growth: Cody, the Gracias, Ben, even Tricia (which I was actually really happy about). I guess I was able to relate to Cody feeling stuck, and sometimes, we resent those in our lives that we think are not stuck. I also appreciated Forman's approach to the subject (and loved reading about the inspiration). Mental health issues are important to put out in the public forum.

[Jo]

Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.

Being such a huge Gayle Forman fan, it was a no-brainer for me to start my reading on mental illnesses for May with I Was Here. Sadly, it wasn't as brilliant as Forman's previous novels.

Cody is still grieving over the death of her best friend Meg, who took her own life. Her grief takes the form of guilt and anger; Meg had moved away for college, and so Cody wasn't around as much to see the signs. She didn't know anything was wrong with Meg, and wasn't there to help her. When she goes to Meg's house to collect her things, she comes into possession of her laptop. Not only have months of sent and received email been wiped, but there's an encrypted file in the trash. With the help of one of her housemates, Cody starts to dig deeper into what Meg was trying to hide, hoping to find reasons for Meg's death.

I Was Here is not the book I was expecting. It's still fairly good, but the focus is on Cody figuring out what happened with Meg, and dealing with her grief, rather than with a romance at it's heart like the Just One Day books, and even, partly, the If I Stay duology. I was expecting more of a romance element, and while there is one, it's a subplot and really not that important to the whole story. I Was Here is a little slow, though. With Harry Kang, Meg's housemate and computer whizkid, helping Cody out, I expected them to find out an awful lot more on their computer than what they did. Cody trying to work things out from that point on takes weeks with not much happening. It gets kind of creepy and disturbing, and Cody makes some highly questionable decisions I just didn't agree with, but for the most part, I was just waiting for something to happen.

For the most part, I liked all the characters in this book. I sympathised with Cody as she struggles with her grief and understanding why Meg would take her life. I really liked her housemates, super friendly Alice, Stoner Richard, and Harry, and I even liked with Ben McAllister, the guy who broke Meg's heart. He's a singer and guitarist in a band, and Meg met him at a gig. A friendship was formed, but things went south, so Cody instantly dislikes him and his cocky attitude. But underneath the flirting and cockiness, Ben is grieving and dealing with his own guilt. I just wish there was more of these characters; despite liking Cody, I got a bit tired of her being in her own head and having the same thoughts the whole time.

Considering this book is about Meg's suicide, there's not an awful lot about Meg and what she was going through. It's more Cody's quest for answers. Depression is a serious topic, someone committing suicide is huge, and I just think there should have been more on these two aspects of the story. I wish we knew more about how Meg was feeling, that there was more about ways with coping with depression, something positive, but there wasn't. This was more about Cody than Meg, but, although Cody might have been left behind, Meg was the one who was ill. I think there should have been more on that, I really do.

Sadly, not Forman's best book, in my opinion. It still has her wonderful writing that kept me reading and flying through, but a slow plot with not much in the way of a conclusion. I really was expecting more. Please do read some other reviews before deciding not to read I Was Here based on my review alone. You might enjoy it.

Good. Probably more like 3.75 stars. Definitely not as good as If I Stay/Where She Went and Just One Day though. Forman always writes characters in a quite believable manner and I did like her characters in I Was Here quite a lot, but I didn't really connect to the narrator (Cody) as much as some of her other books. The main idea for the plot wasn't particularly original but honestly it didn't feel tedious or particularly cliched while I was reading it so I can't complain. The writing was good, as always I enjoyed Forman's style. Some parts of the book were definitely better than others but overall it was definitely very good.

[rakesandrogues]

I had a morbid fascination with the suicide cult that Cody uncovers in I Was Here. I wanted to know what motivated her to join such a group and the kind of people that participate on the website.

However, I found the romance to be quite unnecessary. I didn’t really feel chemistry between the characters. The romance was such a let down and this is one of those books where I wished the characters just remained friends. While I Was Here was an overall good read, it’s definitely not my favorite Gayle Forman book (and doesn’t even come close…).

[girlinthepages]

In all honesty, I wasn’t sure what to expect from I Was Here. It was my first time reading a novel by Gayle Forman and it dealt with the loaded topic of not just a suicide, but a suicide that already happened. So I embarked on this reading journey with a lot of curiosity and a dash of hopefulness, and I was a bit surprised by what I found. I Was Here was not romantic or lyrically or profound like I had anticipated based on what I’d heard of Forman’s other works, but it had a raw honesty about it that I haven’t found in YA when dealing with suicide.

The novel starts with a grim setting in a dead-end small town, and though the scenery changes, the melancholy tone does not. At first it was hard to put myself as a reader into the book’s dreary world, but I learned to appreciate the tone it created for the story. Cody is dealing with the aftermath of the suicide of her best friend, Meg, who was one of the few people Cody knew who managed to escape their town and go to college in a larger city. The novel follows Cody’s quest to find out what drove Meg to the suicide and confront just how disconnected her and Meg became after Meg’s leaving for college. This is where the most glaring problem first crops up in the novel: Meg is already dead. It’s tragic and horrible and a unique premise since the suicide has already happened, but it also robs the reader of forming an emotional connection with Meg and Cody, as it’s hard to get a sense of who Meg was or of the depth of Cody’s grief, because Meg is already gone. Meg and Cody’s relationship mostly lacks depth because it’s depicted with much more telling than showing, with Cody stating she did XYZ with Meg or describing how she and Meg looked in a picture, rather than showing the reader the closeness of their relationship (flashbacks can get annoying but I think they may have really helped in this book). As a reader, it’s hard to even really picture Meg and Cody as friends most of the time, because all you see is the fractured aftermath of the end of their already deteriorating relationship.

A few times at the beginning I thought I might have to DNF the book because it was not only depressing (which is to be expected, considering the topic) but pretty slow, too. Then Cody discovers that Meg was involved with a “suicide support group” online (the kind of group that encourages suicidal thinking, rather than urging others to seek help) and decides to investigate the extent of Meg’s involvement with the group and how deeply the group/certain members may have impacted her decision to take her own life. Once this disturbing element of the story was introduced, I could not put the story down. I had to find out what happened next, to see if Meg’s death was really more of an self-assisted murder, to see if there was foul play, etc. It totally turned into a whodunnit situation and, being the giant Nancy Drew fan that I am, couldn’t resist the pull of the mystery. I was also intrigued by Forman’s inclusion of “suicide support groups” as it added a disturbing element to the story that shows the scary impact and pull strangers over the internet can have (it reminded me a lot of the “pro-ana or pro-mia” blogs that encourage people to continue on with their eating disorders. I studied them for one of my sociology classes in college and groups that support destructive behaviors online through positive encouragement and manipulative tactics are a very, very real thing).

So once this mystery element started I was waiting for this huge, climactic ending…and there wasn’t one. Cody spends all this time tracking the truth down, but there’s really no sense of closure or justice or anything. I was sitting there expecting the cops and FBI to come in, sirens blaring, Cody a bearer of truth in a truly messed up situation…but Cody’s big revelations truly fall flat. I think Forman stretched the plot to thin introducing not only the online suicide groups, but also creepy specific individuals who served as “predators” to these at-risk people such as Meg. It sets the book up to be this big mystery with absolutely no satisfactory resolution. Also, can we please just take a moment and discuss the fact that Cody spends a majority of the novel developing a relationship (albeit with good intentions) with a manipulative online stranger, and then charges straight ahead to confront said creeper AT THEIR HOME and not only is it brushed off as no big deal after (aside from a few “You could have been kidnapped/murdered!” comments) but faces virtually no retaliation from said creepy individual? Not only is it HIGHLY unlikely that a 19 year old girl traveling to confront an internet predator would escape unscathed, but it doesn’t really focus enough on the DANGER of doing such a thing. I get it, Cody is tough and street-wise and headstrong but there is some basic common sense when it comes to internet safety and stranger danger. Just saying.

Though the story was a bit boring in some places, Forman’s writing had a brutality to it that really gave the novel a strong tone of aching and grief. Cody is bitter and angry and has an inappropriate sense of humor at times, but she is clearly in pain. What stood out in the novel most, though, was Forman’s ability to explore the knife’s edge line between contemplating one’s death and being truly suicidal. A few of the characters reflect on the pain and challenges in their lives that make them seriously question their motives for even bothering with it anymore. They admit that death can seem a comfortable and glamorous option. As Stoner Richard says: “We’ve all been there.” The novel isn’t a morality tale telling readers that suicide is wrong and you’re wrong for ever thinking about it; rather it acknowledges the overbearing nature of life, and how different people pull through it…and how some people, like Meg don’t. I would have liked to see mental illness such as depression talked about in the novel more though, as it’s introduced as a topic in the last few pages without really receiving the gravity it deserves.

Also a quick note on the romance: I’m not going to go in-depth about it because it’s so insignificant to the overall story and honestly it would’ve been a stronger book without it. It felt so thrown in compared to the larger, darker themes in the book and was just sort of ridiculous and distracting.

Overall: I Was Here had a lot of problems for me: the anticlimactic mystery, to much telling instead of showing, and an unnecessary romance. However, it dealt with the topic of suicide uniquely and the writing felt raw and painful and real. By the end of the novel I found myself getting a little misty eyed (and I never cry while reading) because I was exhausted watching Cody single-handedly bear the burden of Meg’s death, and her eventual breakdown and confrontation of Meg’s suicide rubbed my emotions raw. I Was Here has a lot of heavy and important themes, but they’re unfortunately buried under a lot of less-than-stunning elements. Also, did anyone else find that this bordered on New Adult?

[Linda]

Gayle Forman knows exactly how to wring my heart until it is almost empty and dry, before helping it to beat once more and let me have a good cry so that I can carry on reading. I Was Here is a raw, tough story dealing with a very difficult subject in a strong and strangely beautiful way.

This and all my other reviews are originally posted on my blog (un)Conventional Bookviews

[bumblingbookworm]

This review was originally posted on The Bumbling Bookworm

Oh gosh, I was a bit nervous to read this one. For starters, the last book I read featured teen suicide (All the Bright Places) and it was a 5 star read for me. I was a bit worried that they'd be too similar or that my massive book hangover would cloud my judgment... Well, my worrying was all for nothing, as per usual! The only thing the two books have in common is the teen suicide and the amazing writing/storytelling. Also, no book hangover could detract from the awesomeness that is Gayle Forman.

Check out the rest of my review here!

[Sarah Says]

I will just say that Gayle Forman is a phenomenal writer; this story flowed beautifully and was extremely easy to read. I received this free advance reading copy of ‘I Was Here’ thanks to Simon & Schuster Australia, with its official release being the 1st February.

…he has this expression on his face –it’s the particular contortion when fury meets guilt. And I know that look. I see it every day in the mirror.

Throughout this book we see Cody struggling to come to terms with the sudden and surprising suicide of her life long best friend Meg –Meg who she’d always held up on a pedestal –and struggling to come to terms with being left behind. Cody’s pain is natural and it feels real. Cody is wracked with the “it’s my fault” syndrome and is desperate to find someone to blame. In her effort to deal, she digs deep into the life that Meg tried to hide, enlisting the friends she meets along the way and uncovering some very disturbing truths.

To start off with we see Cody push everyone away. She is weak, scared, and a pretty crappy friend. But slowly we see her step out of her comfort zone and come to life with the determination (as she sees it) to avenge her fallen friend. We see Cody finally come to terms with Meg’s death and finally have the courage to forgive Meg and exonerate herself.

The romance between Cody and Ben is very cliché and unnecessary, but Cody’s love for Meg and her growing friendships with the other characters are more than strong enough to pull the story along.

Lastly we see Cody move on with her life, taking the lessons learnt with her.

[Kelly]

4.5 Stars.
http://www.divabooknerd.com/2014/12/i-was-here-by-gayle-forman.html
Once again, Gayle Forman has created yet another heartfelt and emotional contemporary that readers can immerse themselves in. Cody is a small town girl who has just lost her one and only friend. Since Meg moved away to collage, the distance between the two friends has becoming increasingly obvious, until Meg takes her own life and in her grief stricken guilt, Cody needs to know why. Her grief is palpable, her guilt heartbreaking and with the discovery of an encrypted file on Meg's computer, Cody is about to discover why Meg ended it all.

Her search leads to the charismatic Ben, a one night stand that may have ended Meg's life. But it seems Ben is just as touched by grief as Cody, and together they form a tentative partnership to uncover Meg's last steps and finding solace in the process. Although I couldn't personally connect to either Cody or Ben, their romance seemed genuine despite the circumstances in which they've united. Meg's computer is the center of the storyline, holding her secrets and thoughts. The storyline also touches on not only suicide, the grief of those left behind but also the moral dilemma between shared grief and what may be the beginning of a romantic relationship. Personally, after losing someone that is seemingly the center of your world and that person also shared an intimate connection with your prospective love interest? No. Just no. But in the interest of a fictional storyline, it wavered between fascinating and touching.

I adore the dramatics of Gayle Forman's simplistic, yet beautiful style of writing that draws you into the pages. Her heartbreaking storylines always offer hope, and she never fails to mend your heart with her bittersweet conclusions. She's one of my favourite young adult contemporary authors, and I Was Here has only cemented my love for her written words.