How are you?
Today I am going to be reviewing History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera. I already have a spoiler-free review for it, which you can read here. In this review, I am going to be discussing all the spoilers I left out of my spoiler-free review. The UK edition of HIAYLM comes out of February 9th.
History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera- Contains Spoilers
Non-Spoiler Thoughts
As I already have a non-spoiler review up, I won't be going into too much detail. I gave History 5/5 stars. I was lucky enough to win an ARC (advanced reader copy) of this book from Maximum Pop Books in November and read it straight after it arrived. This book broke me, then fixed me and broke me again.Cover Chat
So these are both of the covers for History. I have to say that I prefer the UK edition as apparently it is going to have blue foil for the waves. I can't wait to see a finished copy in person!
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 heartbreaking piece in the puzzle of his life.
Synopsis taken from Goodreads.
Opinions
I bloody loved this book! Liked I said in my non-spoiler section, I gave it 5/5 stars. I had never read a book with a gay main character before and found it really interesting. I would defiantly use this book for diversity bingo!! It talks about gay relationships and sex in a really positive way, and for someone who isn't gay, I did learn things about the LGBT community.
Griffin has OCD and I loved the way Silvera portrayed it in HIAYLM. Within the media and the world, we associate OCD with being tidy and being a germ a-phob. But in HIAYLM, Griffin has to do things a certain way (he has to sit on the left side of people). He also has a thing with counting and this is something I relate to. I don't like doing things in odd numbers or when I'm listening to music it has to be on an even number. I was so happy that we got to see this different side of OCD and because I follow Adam on Twitter, I know that he suffers from a similar from of OCD.
I would say that HIAYLM is mainly about dealing with grief. It deals with grief really well and discusses what it's like to lose someone and then lose them in a different sense. I found myself feeling really sorry for Griffin, especially when things started to get complicated with Jackson and Wade (I believe that it is what Griffin's boyfriend by the end of the book is called). It was nice that Silvera included a happy ending, while showing that grieving is a complicated thing and sometimes you don't get over it completely.
My final point is that I love the way the story is told. It is told through alternating chapters of history (Griffin and Theo's relationship) and present (Theo is dead and Griffin is hurting). I found this really interesting to read as you bounce between two and you know that at some point everything is going to go wrong.
So that is my review of History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera, let me know your thoughts on it.
Love,
Carenza x
