This book is a story of loss and heartache. It's a story or relationships and love. It's a story of pain and healing.

Cody and Meg are best friends. Cody comes from a single mother family, and her mother is absent more than she is there. Her lack of parenting makes her grow up fast and hard. She knows how to look after herself at n early age. What she doesn't know is how to open herself up to the love of others. Except for when it comes to her best friend; Meg.

Meg comes from a middle class, loving family. She has a younger brother and her home life seems idyllic. She couldn't be more different from Cody, and yet they are the best of friends.

So why does Meg go alone to a hotel room and drink a bottle of industrial strength cleaning fluid?

After her suicide, Cody makes it her mission to find out more about the room mates Meg has been sharing with a college. She goes to stay with them, in an attempt to get some kind of closure. It isn't possible, she asserts, that Meg would have just done this of her own accord. Meg wasn't that selfish. Was she?

This story shows Cody finding the guy who broke Meg's heart. Ben, who is in a band and, at first, not all that likeable, had a one night stand with Meg, and she became obsessed with him. Cody dislikes him a lot, but nonetheless, she accepts his offer of help to find out what happened to Meg.

The friendship and relationship Cody proceeds to have with Ben is based on their joint pain at Meg's suicide. The path they take is a dangerous one, especially once Cody manages to unscramble the encrypted file in Meg's email. This file leads her on a really dark path, but in the end, it provides some answers.

It is aimed at teenage girls, but I would say it should be an 18+ rating. Suicide is the main theme, and there are times when the book is quite graphic. Maybe, it's aimed more at people in their early twenties. Although, I enjoyed it, and I'm approaching middle age.

Cody. She is a great character. You can see why she is so tough and finds it so hard to form relationships. Her mother is a flake. Cody had to be tough. But, her memories of time spent with Meg's family are heartbreaking. They were much more like her real family than her mother. Which made Meg's death even harder for her to take. In that one act, Meg had stripped her of her entire family.

I loved the way Cody changed as the novel progressed. She was able to accept help and open up to Ben

I had to take time to process what I had just read. It's very powerful. I wanted to research if the groups mentioned towards the end of the story were real. I was appalled, but also intrigued.

Sad. Hopeful. Angry. A whole array of emotions. I wanted to go back to the start and help Meg. I wanted to let her know it would get better. Her suicide broke so many people, as suicide has a habit of doing.

Gayle Forman. I've read one book by her before: "If I Stay." That was another powerful book. It was about a girl who was the sole survivor of a family car accident. She was in a coma, and knew what was had happened, and it showed her trying to decide whether to fight to pull through, or whether to give in and join the rest of her family.

I like Gayle Forman. She tackles difficult issues and writes emotive narratives with compelling characters.

It's bold. It doesn't shy away from difficult topics. It makes you think—really think—about the pain of depression, and whether you should have the right to end your life when the pain becomes too great. It's really moving.

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Created Oct 09, 2017 at 5:50am • Submit your own review...