A review by liralen
I Was Here by Gayle Forman
3.0
Liked it well enough—Forman's certainly capable of pulling it off—but it also felt a little...done? Not really up to par with [b:If I Stay|4374400|If I Stay (If I Stay, #1)|Gayle Forman|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347462970s/4374400.jpg|4422413] or [b:Just One Day|12842115|Just One Day (Just One Day, #1)|Gayle Forman|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348674290s/12842115.jpg|17992862] or even [b:Sisters in Sanity|534258|Sisters in Sanity|Gayle Forman|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1421028339s/534258.jpg|521766]. It's a good book, but it also reads a lot more typical YA than it could. Impractical love story, plot that mostly boils down to one thing, Big Reveal at the end. Not that I think this is the track Forman's going down, but I Was Here reminds me a little of the way Sarah Dessen's books have evolved—the earlier books were much more individual, but over time they've settled into a (kind of repetitive) one-big-issue-per-book, boy-meets-girl kind of formula.
Deffo some excellent things about the book (e.g., Cody's self-questioning, her trying to understand what Meg felt without the book taking it too far; the complicated relationship between Cody and her mother), but didn't really stand out to me in the sea of YA.
Deffo some excellent things about the book (e.g., Cody's self-questioning, her trying to understand what Meg felt without the book taking it too far; the complicated relationship between Cody and her mother), but didn't really stand out to me in the sea of YA.