Tuesday 27 February 2018

History is All You Left Me - Adam Silvera

'There's an alternate universe where we're a crew of three, so tight and unbreakable we don't need a fourth to even it out for me. Where a fourth would only be trouble. Jackson drives, you're sitting shotgun, I'm yelling at you both to turn up the volume when our anthem comes on, and we all sing so loudly the radio doesn't stand a chance against our slightly off-key, comfortable chorus. But that's not a universe any of us lives in, unfortunately.'

Hi again!

Here's another book by Adam Silvera, who wrote They Both Die at the End. I was so impressed with that one I picked this up for the Kindle pretty much right away (even after I said I'd wait). And I guess it's safe to say that I was much less impressed with History is All You Left Me. In this one, our OCD-ridden main character has to deal with the death of his ex-boyfriend, best friend and the one he thought he'd be with forever, Theo. He becomes friends with Theo's new boyfriend, Jackson, in an effort to collect all the remaining pieces of Theo's life. And there may even be something Griffin's not even admitting to himself...

I think the main plot of this book, as described above, is solid enough. The execution, however, was a little... sloppy? I found myself skimming through the latter two thirds of this book because I wasn't really invested in Griffin and Theo's relationship, which was mostly told in flashbacks. There's also not all that much happening in this book, plot-wise. I also didn't like most of the characters - the main three came across as somewhat horrible people and also kind of removed from everyone else.

The book is beautifully written, though. I picked up many nice quotes like the one I used at the top. The book also started out very thought-provoking. Towards the end the plot just got really weird, and I found it difficult to remain invested. 

Regardless of how this wasn't really the book for me, I'll be reading Adam Silvera's other works too whenever I come across them.

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