Title: History is All You Left Me [Goodreads]
Author: Adam Silvera
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Goodreads Summary: When Griffin’s first love and ex-boyfriend, Theo, dies in a drowning accident, his universe implodes. Even though Theo had moved to California for college and started seeing Jackson, Griffin never doubted Theo would come back to him when the time was right. But now, the future he’s been imagining for himself has gone far off course.
To make things worse, the only person who truly understands his heartache is Jackson. But no matter how much they open up to each other, Griffin’s downward spiral continues. He’s losing himself in his obsessive compulsions and destructive choices, and the secrets he’s been keeping are tearing him apart.
If Griffin is ever to rebuild his future, he must first confront his history, every last heartbreaking piece in the puzzle of his life.
Review:
It comes to no surprise to anyone who knows the general premise of this book that it's a heavy read. It's very character focused and explores different people and different relationships, but it is mostly a story about love and grief and how the characters navigate those two things. It is very moving and heart-wrenching at points, and makes a good message by its conclusion. High props to Silvera for being able to weave in a lot more substance to the characters despite their grief. This story could have easily been kept a lot simpler but it's given richness and complexity I didn't expect.
My biggest issue was that I found it difficult to connect to the main character, Griffin. I definitely think this is just an issue with me because Silvera breathes a lot of life into Griffin and feels like a really genuine character...but something just wasn't clicking there for me. When I finished this novel, I felt like there was just something stopping me from loving it as much as I could have, and this is the only aspect I can think of. It just feels like it's a missing piece I needed for it to be great.
Otherwise, I want to also mention that I really appreciated the lgbtqia rep in this book. It's always so nice to read something where the characters' lgbtqia orientations are not the root of the story, or, especially in this book's case, the root of their sadness. While we have instances of characters 'coming out', they are just parts of a much larger story. Also, bisexual characters! Who use the word bisexual! Can I get a hallelujah?! As someone who identifies as bi, it is extremely frustrating to have it never used because everyone only thinks people can be gay or straight. Bless you, Adam Silvera!
So, overall, I really liked this book, but there was just something missing that would've made me LOVE it. I hear good things about Silvera's other novel, More Happy Than Not, so I'm keen to check that out in the near future!
Let me know down below in the comments if you've read this book and what you thought about it!
Until next time!
- Jess, xxx
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