Where She Went - Book Review

By Sara E Thompto

SPOILER ALERT -- Right off the bat this blog tells the ending of If I Stay. If you haven't read If I Stay but plan to and you care about spoilers, I don't recommend reading any further.

If I Stay ended with Mia's decision - to stay. 

She stayed for love, she stayed for passion and she stayed for music. But then what happened?

Where She Went answers that question. 

Gayle Forman starts the tale three years later, when Adam and Mia live on opposites sides of the country and are no longer together. Mia is at Juilliard and Adam is now a super-famous rock-star who lives in LA with his Hollywood girlfriend. 

But after a fateful night brings the two together again, in New York City, for the first time since "the split" we start to piece together just what happened to tear these two apart. From flashbacks from Adams point-of-view and a night of walking around NYC, the two start to connect in a way they haven't connected, since the crash. Adam and Mia are then faced with a new choice: to finally fully move forward with their individual lives, or get back together and face their demons.

Although the book started a bit slow, Forman wrote another solid novel with Where She Went. 

Like usual, I did have a couple things that bugged me.

The wording and descriptions were fumbled at times, holding up the flow of reading. Some of the over articulated words seem as though Forman was at a loss and simply pointed to a word in a thesaurus. This was something that also held me up in If I Stay, so I'm starting to think this might just be a trademark of Formans work. 

My other complaint is Adam. He's just a little too.... much. I understand he's hurting and anxious in this book, but some of his stories were painful to read. Not the type of painful that means I felt sad for him, but the type of painful that simply made me want to put the book aside for a while because I couldn't stand him and his complaining anymore. This was very limited though. 

With my minor complaints aside, Forman did a great job at wrapping up this sequel. Especially with the epilogue. 

I'm not a huge fan of how epilogues wrap up books usually, but Forman writes an epilogue that's truly a non-epilogue, epilogue. She uses her magazine journalism experience to write an article about Adam, another three years later, that ties up lose ends and finishes the story of Adam and Mia very nicely. 

Overall I would recommend this book to anyone who liked If I Stay, and wants to know more about Adam and Mia and where they end up. It offers good detail of what they've been up to, and is a nice and easy read that gives more closure to the emotional roller-coaster that was If I Stay.

Book vs Movie: If I Stay

By Sara E Thompto

The Book

If I Stay, written by Gayle Forman, follows the point of view of seventeen-year-old Mia Hall. Mia has always felt a bit out of sorts; she's a cellist in a rock 'n' roll family and isn't quite as outgoing as the people that surround her. She has a close friend, Kim, but even there she's always been in her own world.

She does have one person who fits her just right though, Adam. He may play guitar in a band gaining fame, Shooting Star, and he might be able to rock-talk with her parents, but he also loves Mia more than anything else and loves her deep passion for the cello.

But after her entire family is involved in a horrific car accident, leaving Mia in a coma, she has an out-of-body experience where she learns she has the choice: to stay and live, or to die, leaving her life and Adam behind.

Through flashbacks you learn all that Mia loves and holds dearly - her family, friends, Adam, and the cello. But, as the story continues we learn the decision is not as simple as it seems. What at first appears to be a cut and dry decision soon becomes more difficult than anyone could have ever guessed.

If I Stay is a true tear-jerker and I would highly recommend a box of tissues nearby while reading.

My only true complaint about the book is the wording used from time to time. It didn't really feel as though Mia and Adam were teenagers. I know they are both supposed to be more mature... but sometimes certain wording didn't flow well and it felt as though Forman hit the thesaurus verse working it out for herself.

With that said, I would still definitely recommend If I Stay. The plot was a nice change of pace for a young adult novel. It is well worth the emotional roller-coaster to learn more about the life of Mia Hall and the answer to the question, will she stay and live, or will she leave this world forever?

The Movie

Refreshingly, the movie follows the book quite closely; something that doesn't seem to happen regularly when it comes to turning a book into a movie. The movie kept the small details such as little conversations about coffee and "categories" Mia and her friend Kim are always putting people into, which helped the movie keep the same vibe as the book.

My only offenses with the movie are very small.

Chloë Grace Moretz and Jamie Blackley were well casted as Mia and Adam, making up the main roles of the movie. Leading up to the movie I noticed far more hype over Blackley than Moretz (especially on the movies official instagram) but after seeing the movie I think that hype needs to be switched. Moretz did a beautiful job playing Mia, especially the more emotional scenes when Mia deals with loss. Blackley on the other hand shined during his parts playing music, but seemed a little lackluster during the more emotional scenes. Sometimes he gave off an air of cockiness when he was supposed to be portraying his love for Mia.

Overall though Moretz and Blackley were a fantastic choice for Mia and Adam.

My one other minor complaint dealing with the actual portrayal of the characters was the major amount of kissing. Whether the script called for it, the director took liberties, or perhaps a bit of both... I do surely hope Moretz and Blackley had some attraction towards one another, because it felt as though at least 90% of their scenes together ended in a hefty make-out session.

Other than the fantastic acting and the wonderful story line, the other main reason to watch this movie is the music. The movie kept right on track with most of the music the book discusses, which presents a fabulous soundtrack. Adams music is on par with how it was described in the book as well, and Blackley did a great job, particularly with the last song in the movie.

My only problem with the music is also my only real big problem with the movie: the final song played.

Small spoiler alert ahead!

The last song is the song that helps Mia make her decision to stay or move on. In the movie Adam writes a song for Mia and plays it for her on his guitar, while she is in her coma. In the book Adam puts headphones on Mia while she is in a coma, and the song is done by cellist Yo-Yo Ma who plays Andante con poco e moto rubato. My issue with Adam being the one who plays the last song in the movie is that it makes it feel like Mia should stay for no other reason than to stay with him, where as in the book it makes it feel like Mia should stay because of her own passions for music and her own future. The symbolical differences between the two are huge.

Overall I would highly recommend this movie. The acting was good, the plot stuck close to the book, and the soundtrack is definitely worth a listen.

Just make sure you have some tissues handy. You'll need them.