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A review by maggiemaggio
Me Since You by Laura Wiess
4.0
Here’s what I expected when I picked this book up: creepy, over-protective parents; a girl who’s somehow involved with an awful crime, witnessing a shooting or robbery or something; and then her family being harassed by the criminals or something along those lines. Let me tell you, that is not what this book is about at all. Rowan does cut school and there is a terrible crime (I don’t want to say what because even though it’s at the beginning of the book I still think it’s a spoiler) and it does have devastating consequences on her family, but it’s all so much more subtle and nuanced and devastating than anything I imagined going in.
First off, I loved Rowan’s parents. Maybe it’s because I’m an adult and not a teenager, but I didn’t think they were too sheltering at all. They were just trying to protect her from all the bad in the world, something her father is all too familiar with as a police officer, and trying to help her make good decisions. Sadly Rowan doesn’t always make good choices, which was probably my least favorite part of the book. I didn’t mind the decisions she was making, they just seemed really out of character for her. From getting drunk and fooling around with a much older guy when she was 13-years-old to getting drunk at a party and then wandering around town at 16-years-old, I just didn’t get it. Rowan’s best friend, this annoying girl named Nadia, is certainly a bad influence, but I also didn’t get why Rowan, someone who’s so nice, would be friends with someone like Nadia, who seems pretty awful. I also didn’t understand why Rowan seemed to have no other friends, there must have been nice, normal girls in her town.
Anyway, Rowan witnesses this accident and it’s not so much the horror of what she sees that haunts her, it’s the effect the accident has on those around her that’s so terrible. When the video goes viral the problem isn’t the people or associates of the those who committed the crime, the problem is the general public. People online rush to judgement and leave rude, hurtful, and judgmental comments and people in Rowan’s real life, from her school bus driver to her classmates say terrible things to Rowan. I love the internet, but it also allows people to be real a-holes and that was abundantly, sadly clear here.
There’s really two tragedies in this book, the first one, the crime that starts the story off (also, be warned that the book briefly switches to third person perspective to tell the story of the accident, but then switches back to Rowan’s first person perspective for the rest of the book) and then the tragedy that’s an indirect result of the crime that really comprises most of the story. Me Since You is probably the realest, most terrible portrayal of grief I’ve ever read. It was not easy to read, it was sad and painful and I cried for probably most of the book, but still, in the end I really liked and admired what Laura Wiess did. She certainly didn’t take the easy way out.
As much as I admired the way Laura Wiess handled must of the story, I also thought parts of it dragged which is why, even though I did really liked this book, I didn’t give it more than four stars. At the beginning I questioned why there was so much focus on Rowan’s job at the dry cleaner, but I will say, but the end I liked how that particular story line wrapped up. And as real as Rowan’s grief was I wish she would have relied on Eli a little bit more. I liked him tremendously and I was sad he didn’t figure into the story in a bigger way.
Bottom Line: This is a sad book. Get the tissues ready because it’s pretty much one tragedy after another. But it’s so worth it. Sometimes we need to read books that just make us cry and this is definitely one of those and it’s damn good at what it is. Rowan’s grief just seeps through the pages and really love what Laura Wiess did with her story.
I received an electronic review copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss (thank you!). All opinions are my own.
This review first appeared on my blog.
First off, I loved Rowan’s parents. Maybe it’s because I’m an adult and not a teenager, but I didn’t think they were too sheltering at all. They were just trying to protect her from all the bad in the world, something her father is all too familiar with as a police officer, and trying to help her make good decisions. Sadly Rowan doesn’t always make good choices, which was probably my least favorite part of the book. I didn’t mind the decisions she was making, they just seemed really out of character for her. From getting drunk and fooling around with a much older guy when she was 13-years-old to getting drunk at a party and then wandering around town at 16-years-old, I just didn’t get it. Rowan’s best friend, this annoying girl named Nadia, is certainly a bad influence, but I also didn’t get why Rowan, someone who’s so nice, would be friends with someone like Nadia, who seems pretty awful. I also didn’t understand why Rowan seemed to have no other friends, there must have been nice, normal girls in her town.
Anyway, Rowan witnesses this accident and it’s not so much the horror of what she sees that haunts her, it’s the effect the accident has on those around her that’s so terrible. When the video goes viral the problem isn’t the people or associates of the those who committed the crime, the problem is the general public. People online rush to judgement and leave rude, hurtful, and judgmental comments and people in Rowan’s real life, from her school bus driver to her classmates say terrible things to Rowan. I love the internet, but it also allows people to be real a-holes and that was abundantly, sadly clear here.
There’s really two tragedies in this book, the first one, the crime that starts the story off (also, be warned that the book briefly switches to third person perspective to tell the story of the accident, but then switches back to Rowan’s first person perspective for the rest of the book) and then the tragedy that’s an indirect result of the crime that really comprises most of the story. Me Since You is probably the realest, most terrible portrayal of grief I’ve ever read. It was not easy to read, it was sad and painful and I cried for probably most of the book, but still, in the end I really liked and admired what Laura Wiess did. She certainly didn’t take the easy way out.
As much as I admired the way Laura Wiess handled must of the story, I also thought parts of it dragged which is why, even though I did really liked this book, I didn’t give it more than four stars. At the beginning I questioned why there was so much focus on Rowan’s job at the dry cleaner, but I will say, but the end I liked how that particular story line wrapped up. And as real as Rowan’s grief was I wish she would have relied on Eli a little bit more. I liked him tremendously and I was sad he didn’t figure into the story in a bigger way.
Bottom Line: This is a sad book. Get the tissues ready because it’s pretty much one tragedy after another. But it’s so worth it. Sometimes we need to read books that just make us cry and this is definitely one of those and it’s damn good at what it is. Rowan’s grief just seeps through the pages and really love what Laura Wiess did with her story.
I received an electronic review copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss (thank you!). All opinions are my own.
This review first appeared on my blog.