You Were Here

Grief is a very unique thing. This book shows it in different facets. The main focus is on Jaycee and the loss of her older brother but the story manages to capture the ways that others too were affected. Natalie is the uptight ex-best friend who doesn't know where life will lead her and is scared by what that means. In her fear, she makes some really big mistakes but she also does some good. She's not as put together as people think. Her boyfriend Zach is underestimated and he doesn't have a pl [...]

MY BLOG: Melissa Martin's Reading ListJaycee's brother Jake was a daredevil, always taking dares and doing crazy stunts. One horrific day, right after he graduated high school that one dare. ended his life. You know there are a lot of people that do stunts and things that are dangerous in their lives but in this story, which is I'm sure very true all over the world, you have kids that are drunk and dare each other to do stupid things. Jaycee walks around with her brother's clothes on, taking dar [...]

EDIT 28/12: HFK's Best YA Read in 2016.Loss and grief, so common occurrences and emotional burdens most of us face in some point of our lives, but still so individual and differing experiences that it is often challenging to truly understand how someone else deals and process life's forces however similar they might be in details, however much it feels as if you could relate to them. That is what You Were Here is all about. A process of grief after a loss, how overpowering and consuming it can b [...]

(Source: I received a digital copy of this book for free on a read-to-review basis. Thanks to SOURCEBOOKS Fire and NetGalley.)“My mom hated this board. She said he’d break his neck.” Her voice was eerily smooth. Isn’t that funny?”“I’m not laughing.”This book was a bit of a disappointment for me.The characters in this were okay, but I didn’t really like any of them. I didn’t get why Jaycee wanted to recreate her brother’s dares, especially the one that killed him, and the ot [...]

Review originally posted at WordpressThank you NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.Before I write this review, I just want to share what had just happened. I stared at my paper almost 10 minutes of how I would justify the book, looking for it’s flaws. But damn! It was just hard to think the cons in this story. It doesn't mean that it was the “perfect one”, “perfect book”, “perfect characters”, “perfect story”. Just a simple descr [...]

4.5 StarsWow. This book totally took me by surprise! I love when I get taken by surprise!Jaycee is still dealing with the death of her big brother 5 years ago, albeit not very well depending on how you look at it. On each anniversary of his death she breaks into an abandoned insane asylum, which was one of her brothers favourite places to do dangerous stunts. Accompanied with one of his old friends, selective mute Mik, and this year joined by some other friends with their own issues, Jaycee must [...]

Thank you Sourcebooks Fire for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.A story about teens take an urban exploration and friendships developed. Told in five perspectives, each characters tell their stories with raw emotion about their life issues. The concept of this book is fascinating, each perspective is in 1st person (Jaycee), 3rd person (Zach and Natalie), illustration (Bishop) and graphic novel style(Mik). Among the characters, Jaycee has the best character developmentGrieving ov [...]

Jake was a daredevil, he lived life on the edge, taking dares, doing insane stunts and walking away each time, until his graduation from high school when his wild ways finally caught up with him and he lost both his edge and his life. Five years later and his younger sister, Jaycee cannot let go of his memory or of the Jake she had built up in her mind. Her family has shattered, going from the extremes of taking blame and having a breakdown or pretending Jake didn’t’ exist. Angered, confused [...]

Jaycee's brother Jake was a bit of a dare devil, he always walked on the wild side of life and liked nothing better than to take chances. Except, his last chance ran out and he fell to his death.Jaycee obviously is devastated and at a loss, she blames her brother, but she also grieves for him.Dare to drink and create stunts and do them, and you have one lethal concoction.Why is Jaycee walking around with her brother's clothes on?Why is she acting the same way her brother did whose last stunt cre [...]

This story of a group of people broken by the careless death of one boy will pul you in and not let go.I was unsure about this for the first 20%. It was a sad tale of a traumatized teenage girl who watched her older brother die, lives with her crumbling family, risks her life almost daily and distances herself from any future plans. I do not like to wallow in the dark pool of pain with characters, like the loop Jaycee seemed to be stuck in. Luckily she wasn't stuck for much longer. The past she [...]

This is more like 4.5 stars.This book left me with so many emotions. It's the story of Jaycee, a self-destructive teenage girl who has just succeeded in doing what her daring brother, Jake, did not: live past graduating high school. In the summer before "life" is supposed to start, Jaycee and four other misfits from all walks of life band together to form an unlikely alliance that embarks on a crazy journey of remembrance for Jake. Each of these characters is broken in some sort of way, most of [...]

My feelings for this novel are so mixed.On the one hand, I think the writing is top notch. Cori McCarthy is one heck of a talented author, and I really enjoyed her sense of humor in her sentences. There was also a lot of originality to this novel as well. Although I've read a great deal of books that have a similar storyline, this one stood out for me because it doesn't follow the overdone tropes and cliches. It was a fresh read, and that says a lot considering this is YA that we are talking abo [...]

Jake was a daredevil and always tempted fate with his crazy stunts. He did urban exploring, going into abandoned places and coming up with the most dangerous thing to try, climbing elevator shafts, climbing old roller coasters, climbing up on roofs. Unfortunately on the day Jake graduated from high school he was drinking and someone dared him to back flip off the playground equipment at which time he fell and snapped his neck. Five years after Jake's death his presence is still felt by those tha [...]

What do I know about anything--other than how fast the world can break and how very long it takes to put all the pieces back together. Even God can't change the past, no matter how many tears I've cried(Not part of the book, from Charlotte Church song that line came to me a few times while I was reading)~~~This was very touching and my heart did hurt for everyone multiple times, but no tears were forthcoming (this is just me, I don't cry easily at books/movies most times). The first part of the [...]

The death of a sibling and close friend is difficult at the best of times, but when it is a teen who was celebrating his graduation with friends, playing around and doing a dare in front of them, it has a dramatic impact on all of them and their relationships. Jake died whilst fooling around and doing a stunt he'd completed successfully hundreds of times before. Since then his sister, Jaycee, has been trying to recreate his daredevil stunts without any real consideration for keeping herself safe [...]

(I received a copy from Netgalley, In exchange for an honest review.)The characters in this weren't bad, but I didn't warm to them enough to like them. The pacing was a bit slow for me in this, so it dragged in areas, and I felt quite bored at times because of it. It was an okay read overall though.

I can't believe I spent a month on this, because at the end of the day, it was really good :)

Quite The Novel Idea ~ Words from the Clouds4.5 starsI'm going to be honest right off the bat here. I almost skipped this book. For reasons I don't really know. My February TBR was so long and so I scratched some books and this was one of them. But then I decided to pick it up anyway, because something told me it'd be worth it. And you know what? It was. Because this book is so. freaking. good.You Were Here is about Jaycee. Her brother died right before her eyes doing a crazy stunt because that' [...]

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight GAH, what even do I say here? This will absolutely end up being one of my favorites of 2016- and all time. I am just going to throw out stuff that I loved because it was all love.The characters and their development throughout the book was incredible. Jaycee is clearly in need of some development, because she cannot move on at all from her brother's untimely death. But what you don't re [...]

**Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for a copy of this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.**You Where Here was a rollercoaster of emotions. This novel will take you down, bring you back up again, and spin you around a few times before finally slowing to a stop that is both satisfying but makes you eager to ride again.When the ride started and we began inching up the first hill, I was a little unsure. The main character, Jaycee, was hard to relate to (I mean, even her "friends" stru [...]

"I chuckled at the memory, and Natalie looked at me like I was a Chihuahua humping her ankle". Author, Cori McCarthy had many funny 'doozer' moments as the sentence above-- enjoyable teenage slang and sarcasm, and graphic comics, in this story which dealt with with heavy issues: death, self-harm, relationships conflicts, selective mutism, anger, grief, loss, violence,family challenges, sibling rivalry,divorce, Fear,TearsSadness, Serious worry,ANDe last summer between High School and College year [...]

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*eARC kindly provided by Sourcebooks Fire via NetGalley*My Review!I’m always, in some way, able to relate to a main character. It could be small or big, but I try to find something of myself in them, so that their story matters more than if I was reading without feelings. But very rarely, can I relate to a character SO well that it’s as if the author was writing about ME. That’s who Jaycee was to me, an MC straight out of my own head and heart, one that does unlikable shit and says mean th [...]

[4.5 stars] **Thank you Sourcebooks for providing me with an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review below.**This book had me smiling goofily at 5 in the morning. Honestly, it was that good. I don't even know why I've put it off for so long, maybe because I was expecting a cheesy YA contemporary but instead got a touching story about a bunch of misfit teenagers who were just trying to find themselves. The story is told through the alternating POVs of Jaycee -- the daredev [...]

See this review AND enter to win a copy on my blog, LilybloombooksI knew once I saw You Were Here - it would be something I loved. But I didn't expect to be blown away by its honesty & amazing characters that pulled on the heart-strings.You Were Here is told from the POV of all five characters, Jaycee, Natalie, Zach, Bishop and Mik. What makes it unique was the formatting. It's blend of first person, third person, art (like graffiti) and a graphic novel. It was brilliant for many reasons [...]

I absolutely loved this book. It kept me glued to the page because I just wanted to know what was going to happen next. This book was hauntingly intense, and while it was painful to read at times, it was also hopeful and heartwarming. The writing was incredible, the art poetry fantastic and the graphic panels added so much to this story. I was left me feeling emotionally drained in the best kind of way - an absolute emotional rollercoaster from start to finish.You Were Here is a story told from [...]

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.Have you ever read a book that is written well, BUT you pretty much want to throttle all of the characters inside of it?This is pretty much one of those books. It deals a lot with grief and the grieving process -- different for everyone and by situation too. But I couldn't quite get that connection with the characters and that sort of distanced me from the [...]

*ARC provided by publisher

Two things, before I dive into the meat of this review. One, this is the first YA Contemporary book that I've read in about a year so I'm coming into this with fresh eyes. It's entirely possible that has also biased me to love this book, so let's get that out of the way before anything else. Two, although I was given a copy of this to review back in 2016, it has taken me this long to get to it. I actually borrowed it from the library to read, and I'm not sorry in the least. Now that you know whe [...]

4.5/5 starsThis book completely took me by surprise and it is one that I cannot recommend enough! From the flawed characters, to a shipworthy romance, and unexpected formatting that knocked my socks off, I was hooked from the beginning.I did not expect multiple POVs, but I have to say it really worked. I liked getting to know all of the characters and the way McCarthy handled two character's POVs in particular, was pretty genius. As I said, the characters are flawed. They are all dealing with th [...]