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A review by abookishaffair
When You Were Here by Daisy Whitney
4.0
"When You Were Here" is the story of Danny, who loses his mother to cancer. All he has left is his mom's best friend (Kate), her daughter (Holland), and his dog. He is trying to deal with loss but it feels like the odds are stacked against him. When he inherits his mom's apartment in Tokyo, he flees to Japan, a place of happier memories in order to figure out his mother a little more. He will end up unraveling even more mysteries than he ever expected.
This was a strong story but there was so much going on with it. There is Danny trying to figure out what his mother was going through before her death. There is Danny's relationship with his adopted sister who originally came from China and in Danny's view all but abandons the family to find her roots rather than helping the family first mourn their father and then Danny to mourn their mother. There is Holland and Danny's relationship, which has a lot of twists and turns that I won't go too far into in order to save the surprise for you. All of these stories are great and could have made up a book themselves so the book sometimes felt rushed as all of the ends were tied together.
I loved the parts of the book that are set in Tokyo. Not only do you have an exotic setting with a lot of interesting characters, Tokyo also represents Danny coming to terms with being on his own but also that he has a lot of people in his corner if he will let them in. I really liked the growth that we see in Danny throughout the book. Overall, I enjoyed this story; I just wish that there would have been a little more room to stretch out some of the stories.
This was a strong story but there was so much going on with it. There is Danny trying to figure out what his mother was going through before her death. There is Danny's relationship with his adopted sister who originally came from China and in Danny's view all but abandons the family to find her roots rather than helping the family first mourn their father and then Danny to mourn their mother. There is Holland and Danny's relationship, which has a lot of twists and turns that I won't go too far into in order to save the surprise for you. All of these stories are great and could have made up a book themselves so the book sometimes felt rushed as all of the ends were tied together.
I loved the parts of the book that are set in Tokyo. Not only do you have an exotic setting with a lot of interesting characters, Tokyo also represents Danny coming to terms with being on his own but also that he has a lot of people in his corner if he will let them in. I really liked the growth that we see in Danny throughout the book. Overall, I enjoyed this story; I just wish that there would have been a little more room to stretch out some of the stories.