Me Since You by Laura Wiess
Genre: Contemporary YA
Series: n/a
Publication Date: February 18th 2014
ISBN: 9781439193976
Page Count: 368
Rating: ★★★
Review Copy: ARC
Reviewed by: Lynsey
Buy Link: AMAZON

Are there any answers when someone you love makes a tragic choice?

Before and After. That’s how Rowan Areno sees her life now. Before: she was a normal sixteen-year-old—a little too sheltered by her police officer father and her mother. After: everything she once believed has been destroyed in the wake of a shattering tragedy, and every day is there to be survived.

If she had known, on that Friday in March when she cut school, that a random stranger’s shocking crime would have traumatic consequences, she never would have left campus. If the crime video never went viral, maybe she could have saved her mother, grandmother — and herself — from the endless replay of heartache and grief.

Finding a soul mate in Eli, a witness to the crime who is haunted by losses of his own, Rowan begins to see there is no simple, straightforward path to healing wounded hearts. Can she learn to trust, hope, and believe in happiness again?

REVIEW

Me since this book

This is such a difficult book to rate! I really am having  a difficult time settling on a star rating. Normally I just rate on how enjoyable I found a book, but Me Since You was so thoroughly and heartbreakingly sad can I really say that I enjoyed myself reading it? Mmm, that might be a stretch...

So, if I can't do that, perhaps I should rate on writing quality? Well, actually, if we're going there, the present tense narrative and the unfathomable allergy to pronouns drove me slightly batty, so perhaps not.

I guess, then, the most important question should be whether or not I would recommend others to read it, despite its moroseness. And, surprisingly, the answer to that is yes. It is definitely worth your time, and was extremely thought-provoking and poignant. Excellent brain food. But you'd need to prepare yourself mentally before going in.

So, what is it about? Well, the story follows Rowan, the sixteen-year-old daughter of a police officer who is witness to a double suicide/murder - A mentally unstable man jumps off a bridge with his newborn son right in front of him. Rowan's father struggles to add the weight of this to the endless list of other atrocities he's seen over the twenty years of his career, and might have been able to bear it, but the dashboard cam from his police vehicle captured the whole thing, and the video soon goes viral, attracting all the hate and vitriol you can imagine from anonymous online users who have an opinion on just about everything - including whether or not he did his job properly that day. It's all too much for him, and it's not long before he disappears onto a fog of depression, taking his family - Rowan and her mother- with him.

To me, this is where Wiess excelled. The way she conveyed the father's decent, and the impotent frustration of both Rowan and her mother during this time, was exceptional. To take a man from someone who was always in command, the main authority figure of the family, to someone who can barely dress himself, was a cruel torment. And understandably, Rowan feels equal measures of compassion and rage for his situation. It was like he was there in person, but not in spirit. And was both fascinating and devastating to read.

Then, as a subplot, there is Eli, a local boy who was also there on the bridge that day. He's a sympathetic ear and romance soon develops, but this part was by no means the focus of Me Since You.

Overall, I found the book to be engrossing, and I'm glad I read it, but I can tell you it left me hankering for something much, much lighter afterwards. You've been warned!

3 Stars ★★★
ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.