I Was Here Review

I Was Here by Gayle Forman

Title: I Was Here

Author: Gayle Forman

Series: None

Publisher: Viking Juvenile

Publication Date: January 27, 2015

Genre: Realistic Fiction; Fiction; Contemporary; Romance; Disabilities; Coming-of-Age; Young Adult

Pages: 270

Format: Hardcover

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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.

I’ve read multiple books that confront the subject of suicide and depression. With this one, Gayle Forman adds her own element of writing that sets it apart from others. I Was Here is by no means like any of Gayle Forman’s previous light romance reads. It has a ton of baggage. So much so, a reader has to purposefully carve out time in his schedule to make sure he reads this book thoroughly and cover to cover.

Cody is caught in a tidal wave of misunderstanding, confusion, and guilt after her best friend commits suicide in a hotel room. Meg seemed to have thought of everything right down to the tip for the maid. While everyone is focused of healing, forgetting, and moving on, something keeps Cody from letting go of her best friend. She can’t accept the one and only explanation for Meg’s death. When opportunity hands her a ticket to Meg’s old dorm room, Cody takes it as a chance to discover what exactly was going on with her best friend.  

I respect Gayle Forman’s decision to write about a topic as serious as teen depression and suicide. I also respect her work on the characters and the emotions they encountered in the story. Her attention to the disasters surrounding the suicide, like the damage wrought around the epicenter of an earthquake, was realistic and tell it like it is. This story could’ve so easily been preachy, but she managed to stay away from that line.

The writing was unrecognizable as Gayle Forman’s. It was dark in all the places where her other books are lighter, and it was about ten thousand pounds heavier. She really pushed her boundaries with I Was Here.

 This book didn’t entertain me as much as it educated me. I left with more of an understanding of what drives people to suicide and the effects it has on those around us. I Was Here has an important lesson to share with all its readers, one that I will definitely remember.