Reviews - When Haru Was Here

1.07k reviews for:

When Haru Was Here

Dustin Thao

3.75 AVERAGE

ikomena's review against another edition

1.0

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I would suggest going to therapy.

At least it was queer

ezzydesu's review against another edition

3.5

emotional sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

linsay1's review against another edition

3.0

emotional reflective medium-paced

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

lupita_333's review against another edition

5.0

I love both of the books that Dustin Thoa has written so far. He is such an incredible author that knows how to tug at your emotions.

Eric’s character is a beautiful representation of what it’s like to grieve someone and trying to avoid the reality of life without them. I went 90% through this book without shedding a tear but that last 10% was so saddening. Once it was revealed that Eric was also avoiding the reality of Jasmines death it was so gut wrenching even though it was hinted throughout the story she was dead.

Jasmine and Eric were my favorite characters.

floatingbubblepops's review against another edition

4.25

emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

this book… it was so fun to read! i went through a rollercoaster of emotions with happiness, sadness, ick-ness, annoyance, all the things. i was not ready for the ending, and it ended up being really sweet omggg

i love eric and haru and everyone from the book

even if some of them we’re imaginary!!

i enjoyed this very much! this book took me out of a reading slump, so thank you dustin thao :)

nijb2013's review against another edition

5.0

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Will make your shed tears, in a good way

myfi's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

tyaravazhi's review against another edition

2.0

I was excited for this book and was so primed to fall in love with it, and it ended up being quite disappointing.

It has all the right elements, but it was so disorganized and lacked depth where it was desperately needed.

Specifically, there’s very little meaningful character growth or development in as story that’s meant to be about grief. And for a book with one of the main characters named in the title, we sure don’t get much from “Haru.”

The plot suffers from too many things going on and also works unnaturally hard to obfuscate certain details to clear the way for a “plot twist.”

Honestly difficult for me to come down so hard on this because I genuinely wanted to love it.

A very similar story that I felt does a much better job of covering this subject matter is Robbie Couch’s “Another First Chance.” Incidentally, also published this year…and the cover also has a similar color story.