How are you?
Today I am going to be doing my first spoiler free review as the book I am reviewing doesn't come out until tomorrow in the US and on February 9th in the UK. The book I am reviewing is History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera. I was lucky enough to win an ARC of this book through Maximum Pop Books in November 2016. I read it as soon as I got it and loved it so much it made it on to my favourite books of 2016 list (books that weren't published in 2016 list). In this review I am going to be talking about the things I like that aren't spoiler related. I hope you guys like this review and you should all go and read History Is All You Left Me.
History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera- Spoiler Free
Cover Chat
So this is the cover for the UK ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) of HIAYLM. If you google the final cover, you will see that they are quite similar. I really like how simplistic the cover is.
Plot
When Griffin’s first love and ex-boyfriend, Theo, dies in a drowning accident, his universe implodes. Even though Theo had moved to California for college and started seeing Jackson, Griffin never doubted Theo would come back to him when the time was right. But now, the future he’s been imagining for himself has gone far off course.
To make things worse, the only person who truly understands his heartache is Jackson. But no matter how much they open up to each other, Griffin’s downward spiral continues. He’s losing himself in his obsessive compulsions and destructive choices, and the secrets he’s been keeping are tearing him apart.
If Griffin is ever to rebuild his future, he must first confront his history, every last heart breaking piece in the puzzle of his life.As always, this plot is taken from Goodreads.
Opinions
I gave HIAYLM 5/5 stars. I had known that this book was going to be emotional and that it would probably destroy me. It was a beautifully written book, told in an unusual style and deals with the issues of grief really well. It also deals with relationships and learning to move on. It is the first book I have read that has a Gay main character. It has inspired me to read more diverse books as I really enjoyed this.
As I have already said, this book deals with grief really well. In my 2016- A Reflection post, I talked about the isolation I felt after my Gran's death. This book captured perfectly what I felt. It talks about how different people have different coping mechanisms to deal with death. As my Gran's death was the first death in my family (that I could remember), I really didn't know how I was going to act. What I am trying to say, in a very long winded way, is that I found myself relating to this book a lot and I really wish that I had had this book earlier.
Another thing this book deals with is relationships. Not only romantic relationships, but friendships, which is something that gets over looked in YA. The friendships in this book are as strong as the romantic relationships. Adam Silvera builds really strong character relationship and that is something I love about his books.
Probably my favourite thing about this book is that it was an LGBT book. Griffin is gay and as I've already said this is the first book I've read that has a gay main character. I found it really interesting reading from someone of a different sexuality. It deals with sexuality in such an amazing way, I don't think I can but it into words how much I love this book.
So that is it for my non-spoiler review, I will be posting a Spoiler review closer to the UK release date in February. Let me know if you've read anything by Adam Silvera.
Love,
Carenza x
