Where She Went by Gayle Forman | Rating: ★★★★★“It would’ve been easier to die. It’s not that I want to be dead now. I don’t. I have a lot in my life that I get satisfaction from, that I love. But some days, especially in the beginning, it was so hard. And I couldn’t help but think that it would’ve been so much simpler to go with the rest of them. But you—you asked me to stay. You begged me to stay. You stood over me and you made a promise to me, as sacred as any vow.”
Sequels can be often difficult to garner attention. It’s no easy task attempting to keep the magic of previous installments and allow the appropriate amount of growth in characters to make the story realistic as it can be. Gayle Forman, naturally, does so gracefully in the sequel to her bestselling and beloved novel If I Stay.
Whiles If I Stay focuses on the thin life between life and and deathand the loss of nearly your entire world; Where She Went focuses more on the aftermath of those it touched as well as discovering how to live in a world of grief. It reminds us all that life goes on and that thought tragedy strikes you down, it isn’t impossible to move forward. Mia has to discover herself again; relearn many things and figure out how to live again.
