I Was Here by Gayle Forman

From Goodreads,

"When her best friend Meg drinks a bottle of industrial-strength cleaner alone in a motel room, Cody is understandably shocked and devastated. She and Meg shared everything—so how was there no warning? But when Cody travels to Meg’s college town to pack up the belongings left behind, she discovers that there’s a lot that Meg never told her. About her old roommates, the sort of people Cody never would have met in her dead-end small town in Washington. About Ben McAllister, the boy with a guitar and a sneer, who broke Meg’s heart. And about an encrypted computer file that Cody can’t open—until she does, and suddenly everything Cody thought she knew about her best friend’s death gets thrown into question.

I Was Here is Gayle Forman at her finest, a taut, emotional, and ultimately redemptive story about redefining the meaning of family and finding a way to move forward even in the face of unspeakable loss."

Goodreads - I Was Here

I had a conversation a while back with a friend about what types of books we like to read and the themes we tend to gravitate to.  I've come to realize that I tend to gravitate to books that have cancer or suicide themes.  I'm not sure why, but I do.  Death and dying absolutely terrifies me.  It's easily my number one fear.  Maybe I'm just trying to get over my fear of dying by reading about it.

In this book we are introduced to Cody who is coming to terms to the fact that Meg has committed suicide.  She is asked to travel to town where Meg was going to college and clean out her room.  Once she gets to the university she finds that there is a lot she didn't know about her best friend and she makes it her goal to figure out what happened.

I connected with Cody and Meg in this book because I saw some of my own friendships in these two characters.  Meg was obviously suffering from depression, but she always put on a good face.  She always made it seem like everything was okay and that life was great, while behind closed doors she was drowning.  I think that a lot of people my age will admit that they have felt like they were honestly drowning in life before.  I had a conversation with a friend one day and we talked about college and the struggles we had dealt with.  We both realized we had faced different battles, but yet we both had faced some things that put us in depressed states.  Neither of us ever had the courage or the will to reach out to the other and say "Hey.  I'm struggling with life right now and I need help."  But somehow we both were able to get through what was going on.  This same friend actually told me that she had considered taking her own life because she couldn't handle it all anymore.  I was devastated that she didn't feel comfortable coming to me for help or talking to me about what was going on.  I had no idea that she had had those thoughts.  Depression is a serious issue in today's society, but many people in their 20s don't seek the help they need.  There is so much pressure to maintain a social life and a job and get an education and get plenty of sleep and be healthy and so on.  Gayle Forman addressed depression and I love that she tied it back to one of the main reasons that Meg took her life.  Society needs to be exposed to the fact that depression can lead to suicide and that not everyone exhibits typical depression symptoms.

Something I absolutely hated in this book was the attempt at romance between Cody and Ben.  Ben happens to be a guy who knew and dated Meg.  After Meg dies and Cody goes to clean out the room, Ben turns his attention to her.  It was one of the most bothersome things I've ever encountered in a book with a best friend committing suicide.  Spoiler alert: Cody ends up with Ben.  All girls know that you don't hook up with your best friends ex.  I just felt like Cody wasn't respecting her dead best friend.  I somewhat understand that Forman wrote it in so that the reader would understand how Meg fell for Ben, but at the same time I feel like Forman could have given Cody the strength and ability to resist Ben.  There would have been a better storyline if Cody had insisted that she respect Meg and moved on.  I'm a HUGE fan of friendship in books.  I feel like thanks to this romance storyline, the friendship that Meg and Cody had was completely thrown out the window.

Overall, I have to give this book 4 stars.  It was better than I expected.  The only downfall was the romance storyline between Cody and Ben.  This is a topic sensitive book and I recommend this only to mature readers who can handle the content included.  I can see this book being on shelves in high schools and being read by twenty somethings.