I Was Here - Gayle Forman

I Was Here by Gayle Forman
Genre: YA Realistic Fiction

Blurb (on a back of book): Cody and Meg were inseparable.
Until . . . they weren’t anymore.
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 McCallister, 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.

MY OPINION: ****

Wow. What an adventure of a novel.

Suicide. Misunderstanding. Friendship.

Just wow.

This book is about a girl named Cody whose best friend, Meg, has just suicided by drinking rare poison in a hotel room. Oh, and let's not forget about the tip for the maid. Cody is confused and a little angry and hurt because she never felt any of this coming from Meg. Meg never told her that she was suicidal or depressed or anything, so Cody is a little confounded and angry.

I really was interested by the fact that Meg was so ORGANIZED when planning her suicide. That was just very different from other suicide books I've ever read.

Cody was kind of an annoying character to me because she was too reckless and ran heedlessly into things without bothering to think about what she was doing. She also hurt many people in this book, including Ben, and literally was just a plain jerk who needed to shut up and listen sometimes. But I DID enjoy the fact that Cody was determined and quite brave.

Ben. His character was a little complicated and difficult to understand. He is kind of a jerk who just screws girls over and then leaves them. Cody hates him at first and is a little bit of an idiot at their meeting. It turns out that Ben also screwed Meg over and may even blame himself for Meg's death.

I liked the writing style of this book. It was so simple and it made it easy to read, however complicated the plot was.

We go through this big whole adventure where Cody and Ben uncover all of Meg's secrets, which I thought was kind of rude because let's face it: you're going through a dead girl's email and private files however important it may be.

Also, are suicide SUPPORT groups a real thing?? I mean, I understand why they would be around but seriously, how does this really help anyone?

Cody and Ben grow closer and then she ends up sleeping with him, which results in her feeling "different" and unsure of herself. She then ditches him, because her mother wants her to come home via airplane. I thought that was kind of rude because I really liked Ben and empathized with him.

However, I didn't hate this book. Sure, it wasn't the best book I've ever read in my life, but I did enjoy reading this book to pass the time, which is basically what I've been doing. It was a pretty interesting book, but it was complicated, with a bunch of characters who all played a different role in the story.

I would recommend this book to YA readers who are in for a big complicated puzzle of a novel that never ceases to interest.

Main Character: Cody
Sidekick(s): Ben, Alice, Stoner Richard, Harry, Meg, Tricia, etc
Villain(s): Suicide, depression, All_BS, etc
Realistic Fiction: This book was all very real to life, however scary and depressing that thought is.

PS Sorry for poorly written review :D