Gayle Forman

I'm calling this historical fiction because it does an excellent job of showing how so many kids in the 1980s didn't know anything about the LGBTQ community or HIV/AIDS or how racism really operates. It was pretty easy for our parents to keep us in the dark because we didn't have the internet and American culture at the time was complicit in pretending these things didn't exist or that kids shouldn't know about them. (Obviously, there are still sub-cultures in the US that continue to work show more very hard to keep kids in the dark, but most kids now have much more access to information.)

Anyway, I loved this book so much. I'm just going to list some things I appreciated about it:

Every character felt real enough to touch.

I am already/always a big fan of the How I Spent My Summer Vacation genre. The serial killer search gave the plot momentum, but summer books have a natural narrative arc because we know that summer can't last forever.

I loved the Venice Beach setting. I've been to Venice once and it brought it back to my mind vividly.

Thematically this book is super relevant to the 2020s without putting anachronistic words into the mouths of 1980s characters. Again, what was so powerful to me about this book was the way it shows both how much things have changed and how they're still the same. Kids are more knowledgeable and empowered now, but I think they will still empathize with Bug's desire to know more and to show that she deserves to know more.

So this book just jumped to my #1 Newbery hope for 2022. My only hesitation is that I don't think Gayle Forman is LGBTQ or Latinx, which isn't part of the Newbery criteria, but still weighs on my mind when I think about representation. The POV character is a cis white-passing girl, but the experiences of her brother (who is Latino) and her LGBTQ friends are a huge part of the book. show less

Favorite Quote: I am seventeen years old. This is not how it's supposed to be. This is not how my life is supposed to turn out.

Oh.My.God.
My heart hurts so much, I can't believe how it can bear it. I never felt such emotions reading a book. Ever.
It was such a sad, gut-wrenching, tear-your-heart-and-leaving-it-open book. When I thought the tears would stop, another line, another word would keep 'em coming and coming, until my family started worrying about me.
Mia's story and her journey out of show more her body, witnissing her loved ones going through the tragedy was at times unbearable to read, even worse were the memories she relieved by each step she took and every second that ticked by.

She keeps wondering: What would it be like if I stay?

She had a life before, a pretty amzing one: a wonderful family with an ex-rockstar Dad, a feminist who doesn't chew her words Mom and a sweet little brother, her passion for classical music and pursuing her dream of becoming a famour cello player graduated from Julliard school.

But then everything has perished. Her entire family is gone, nothing is left for her in this life, everyone she cherished had been taken away that very morning, there's nothing worth staying for.

And there's Adam.

Adam.Adam.Adam.Adam.

The music-obsessed, guitar-player, sweet and swoony rock star boyfriend. Though things weren't always great with the different paths their lives were taking, they were still crazy in love and trying as hard as possible to make it work and not think about the imminent future. However, he was both her weakness and her stregnth and his disarray made me cry even harder. Him wishing for her to stay, oh God what a mess I've been when I read that passage:
"If you stay, I'll do whatever you want..."

The ending is what frustered me the most. How could Mrs. Forman leave me with such an ending? that was very wicked of her, now I can't wait untill I read the next book, and from what I heard, it will be from Adam POV and I'd better prepare a box of Kleenex...

N.B: Through the whole book, and possibly because he's a music obsessed guy, I couldn't stop picturing Adam as:

Since his role in Gimore Girls as Jesse, the troublesome, oh-so-dangerously-hot bad boy who loved music AND reading books, I had a soft spot for him. I mean, who would resist such a hottie and this lopsided mouth that would crack into such a very sexy grin... *sigh*



As for his voice, the PenguinYoungReader trailer for "Where She Went" is feautring one of the sexiest voice I've ever heard for Adam. So now, I'm fully intending on reading the next book AND listening to the audiobook. show less

At first I was doubtful about If I Stay, figuring it was going to be some overwrought teenage melodrama. (The moody cover with the girl on it didn't help.) Boy was I wrong – it turned out to be this lyrical, deeply moving book about life, death, and love.

This is a very introspective novel with little to no plot. Mia’s body was seriously injured in a car accident, but her essence seems to be hovering in limbo. She will have to decide whether she wants to live or quietly slip show more away. While she considers her choice, Mia observes the various people gathered at the hospital, and she looks back on her relationships with her family, her friends, and her boyfriend, none of which will ever be the same.

I was afraid that Mia’s main concern would be TEH BOYFRIEND, but I was pleasantly surprised. He does play a large role – he is Mia’s first love, after all – but equal import is placed on her mother, her father, her younger brother, her best friend, her grandparents, even music. Gayle Forman is a master at crafting wonderful vignettes – Mia’s first date with Adam, the birth of her brother, a day in Portland with her grandfather - that showcase all the love in her life. You feel punched in the gut because Mia will never see some of these people again. But you also hope that she will realize that she has so much to stay for, despite all that she has lost.

Four (and possibly a half) stars. show less

I feared picking up this book, because ever since reading Forman’s If I Stay and Where She Went (both of which I loved), I have been disenchanted with her books. This one, though, thankfully did not disappoint me.

In Leave Me, a 44-year-old woman, Maribeth Klein, with a demanding job and family life, has a heart attack followed by by-pass surgery. Prior to this event, she had been “overtaxed and overtired,” and the people in her life just kept making more and more demands on her. Musing show more about all she had to do stressed her out even more:

“…someone had to get the kids to their ballet classes, their soccer clinics, their speech therapy sessions, their playdates, their birthday parties. To take them shopping for their Halloween costumes, to the pediatrician for their flu shots, to the dentist for their cleanings. Someone had to plan the meals, buy the food, pay the bills, balance the checkbooks. Someone had to get it all done, while still getting all the work-work done.”

Maribeth's husband Jason, head archivist for a music library, always claims to be too busy to help, and he is not all that responsible. In a way, he doesn’t have to be; he knows Maribeth will take care of what needs to be done. So unless Maribeth does it, the house is never clean, the laundry is never done, and the food is never shopped for or made.

Even after her heart attack and surgery, everyone expected Maribeth to go back to taking care of everyone and everything. No one seems to understand that she needs time to heal, and she is increasingly disaffected with her life; Maribeth worries she will never have the chance to recover. The idea of running away and never coming back started to become very appealing to her, in spite of her attachment to her job working for her sort-of-former BFF Elizabeth, to her husband Jason, and especially to her four-year-old twins, Liv and Oscar.

Feeling increasingly desperate, Maribeth concluded the only way for her to heal was in fact to leave, at least for a while. She pulled her savings out of the bank and headed from New York to the Pittsburgh area, where she was born. She took on a new identity, got an apartment, found a new doctor, and made new friends. She even decided to look for her birth mother (she was adopted), because her cardiologist thought she might have a hereditary heart condition, and Maribeth wanted to know.

Her new young friends, Todd and Sunita, are delightful, as is her new cardiologist, Stephen Grant, who has a mysterious background too, and they all become close. Maribeth feels torn. Will she keep her new life, or return to her old?

Discussion: I was so happy to read another very good book by Forman. The side characters are well-drawn, and all the pop-culture references by Todd and Sunita were fun and not overdone. (I especially got a kick out of the very amusing reference to The Hunger Games.)

The ending put me through an emotional wringer, and I cried of course.

Evaluation: This novel is a bit of a fantasy, in a sense, giving voice to secret thoughts many women have, and with an ending not completely tied up, leaving room for a sequel, one hopes. show less