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A review by burialshroud
When You Were Here by Daisy Whitney
1.0
Danny's mom dies just before he graduates high school, so he lives the angry young man cliché (parties at his house every night to make the place seem less empty, casual sex, prescription drugs, et cetera), before finding a flimsy excuse to go to Japan to find out more about his mom's last days.
The worst thing about this book was Danny's voice; dour, dull and depressing. A character wallowing in grief does not make a novel. I have the same problem with When You Were Here as I had with [b:Come See About Me|17927693|Come See About Me|C.K. Kelly Martin|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1368661261s/17927693.jpg|19191080], another book during which I failed to feel sympathy for a character who's suffered a recent and devastating loss. In both books there are lots of flashbacks to mundane events that I'm sure are very poignant to the grieving character but are not interesting to read about. How many gosh darn Danny's-mom-likes-lilacs anecdotes do we need?
I also hated the women in Danny's life, or rather woman because they're all basically the same fun-loving free-spirit paragon but with different coloured hair. There's Danny's mom who as we know loves lilacs and other flowers, loves life and is the strongest, healthiest sick-person anyone in the book has ever met. There's Danny's true love, the dubiously named Holland (WHATEVER) who is a blonde hyper-babe who loves tacky jewellery and sunshine (BLEURGH). And of course there's Kana, the irritating Japanese girl:
“So you play the sax, you have a panda purse, you’re a crazy-good photographer, you like to talk, and you hiss at women on the streets. Did I get that right?”
Gah!
In TV sitcom The Office, Michael Scott always pulls out an imaginary gun in his improv class because it's the most shocking, un-toppable thing that anyone can do. I was reminded of this throughout When You Were Here; Danny's dad dies, his sister leaves the country, his childhood sweetheart breaks up with him, his mom dies and then about 3/4 into the book Danny finds out about another horrible thing that happened and it felt gross to me, like the book was trying to up the ante, "The dead mom not doing it for you? Try THIS. Shocking, huh? Are you crying yet? Are you feeling the raw emotion mentioned in the Goodreads synopsis?"
Ack, I did not like this book. It felt inauthentic, it was annoying. Skip this and read [b:Tell the Wolves I'm Home|12875258|Tell the Wolves I'm Home|Carol Rifka Brunt|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1335450415s/12875258.jpg|18028067] which deals with grief, a bit of mystery and a big city same as this book, but is interesting and compelling.
The worst thing about this book was Danny's voice; dour, dull and depressing. A character wallowing in grief does not make a novel. I have the same problem with When You Were Here as I had with [b:Come See About Me|17927693|Come See About Me|C.K. Kelly Martin|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1368661261s/17927693.jpg|19191080], another book during which I failed to feel sympathy for a character who's suffered a recent and devastating loss. In both books there are lots of flashbacks to mundane events that I'm sure are very poignant to the grieving character but are not interesting to read about. How many gosh darn Danny's-mom-likes-lilacs anecdotes do we need?
I also hated the women in Danny's life, or rather woman because they're all basically the same fun-loving free-spirit paragon but with different coloured hair. There's Danny's mom who as we know loves lilacs and other flowers, loves life and is the strongest, healthiest sick-person anyone in the book has ever met. There's Danny's true love, the dubiously named Holland (WHATEVER) who is a blonde hyper-babe who loves tacky jewellery and sunshine (BLEURGH). And of course there's Kana, the irritating Japanese girl:
“So you play the sax, you have a panda purse, you’re a crazy-good photographer, you like to talk, and you hiss at women on the streets. Did I get that right?”
Gah!
In TV sitcom The Office, Michael Scott always pulls out an imaginary gun in his improv class because it's the most shocking, un-toppable thing that anyone can do. I was reminded of this throughout When You Were Here; Danny's dad dies, his sister leaves the country, his childhood sweetheart breaks up with him, his mom dies and then about 3/4 into the book Danny finds out about another horrible thing that happened and it felt gross to me, like the book was trying to up the ante, "The dead mom not doing it for you? Try THIS. Shocking, huh? Are you crying yet? Are you feeling the raw emotion mentioned in the Goodreads synopsis?"
Ack, I did not like this book. It felt inauthentic, it was annoying. Skip this and read [b:Tell the Wolves I'm Home|12875258|Tell the Wolves I'm Home|Carol Rifka Brunt|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1335450415s/12875258.jpg|18028067] which deals with grief, a bit of mystery and a big city same as this book, but is interesting and compelling.