3.5 stars


I'll Be There is a modern fairy tale.
It reads like a fairy tale and it's got the tropes of a fairy tale, though revisited in a modern key.

It is the story of Sam and Emily.
Sam, our modern male Cinderella, has been on the road with his little sick brother for as long as he can remember, obliged by their psychotic father to live a miserable life, not going to school, kept out of society.
Emily is just a regular small town girl, reserved, introverted.
But when Emily is obliged by her fath More...

4.5 stars (Brace yourself for the gushing - apparently my brain was having a fire sale on similes and adjectives.)

Books like this make me feel so grateful that I am a reader.

Imagining that I was born without a propensity for reading and/or taught to love it tends to put me in a panicky tailspin, at the thought of all the characters, places and emotional experiences I would have missed, had I not been so inclined to pick up a book whenever possible.

And as far as emotional experiences go, this o More...

When people say Do Not Read In Public, I should probably listen, as it would likely save my mascara. You want a book that brings crocodile tears from sadness and joy, read I’ll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan. This is arguably one of the best contemps I’ve read all year.

Read the rest of my review here

3.5 stars
I’ll Be There has been collecting dust on my shelf for over a year. I usually don’t buy books unless I intend to read them right away, but sometime between ordering Holly Goldberg Sloan’s debut and actually receiving it, I convinced myself it would be too emotionally draining. So I just left it on my shelf where it made me feel guilty every time I looked at it. And then last night, I finally picked it up.

In the end, while I did tear up a couple of times, I’ll Be There came nowhere near More...

This review is also posted on my blog, In The Good Books.

Sam and his younger brother Riddle live under the care of their unstable criminal father, constantly moving out of his paranoia. Drawn to music, Sam one day finds himself in the back pew of a church, transfixed by the off-key solo of Emily Bell, who's given him more incentive to stay than he's ever had.

Let's begin with: I'll Be There is one of the most charming books I've ever read.

The tone of I'll Be There pretty accurately represented wh More...

Leer que a Sam y a Emily les unía el amor por la música fue la chispa que encendió mis ganas de leer esta novela. Pues bien, resumiendo:
Emily canta un día en la iglesia y Sam la observa desde la última fila. Sus miradas se cruzan. Ella sale corriendo tras cantar I'll be there de los Jackson Five ya que tiene pánico escénico. Él sale corriendo tras ella. Ella vomita. Él sujeta su pelo. Se separan. Se enamoran.
¿Y cuánto tiempo ha transcurrido? Media hora, a lo sumo. ¿Y cuántas páginas? 30, como m More...

Thanks Arlene for this gorgeous book. And, yes, I loved it so. Review to come x

This book captivated me from start to finish. You’d never know that this is a debut novel, as the writing is so compelling and flows beautifully. It’s sparse, but I feel that it really works with this story as it’s essentially a modern-day fairy tale and so the style doesn’t really lend itself to complexity. There’s so much packed into what is a relatively short novel, but none of it feels rushed – the plot moves along at a comfortable pace and there weren’t any slow parts for me. It did requi More...

Favorite Elements

Short. Concise. Impactful. Sentences. Such as, "And for the first time in days, she smiled. Wide. Full. Complete."

Employs a "rolling stone" or "tag, you're it" technique. Every new character that is introduced comes with a small story that sums up their life and explains how they came to be in this story, with these people, who you love. And it all just seems to flow together. I don't know how Holly Goldberg Sloan did that, but I am impressed.

Least Favorite Elements

Bobby. (He s More...

Let me start off by saying that I honestly do not understand how this book got as many positive reviews as it did. No, I would not say this was the worst book I've ever read, but I definitely could've done without finishing this one.

I'll start with the positive:
This book had good values. I guess a lot of the book dealt with the consequences of one's past actions. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I can definitely see how that could've been a main theme. Also, unlike so many other books More...

I wasn't sure what to think about this one for a while. I started out liking it, but then the stretch to believing characters and events became too high. I'll Be There reminded me of a Disney Channel movie in a way - some good notes, but mostly cheesy, with caricatures/idealizations rather than real-seeming characters, and with high-tension events that, against all odds, turn out just fine. Sam and Emily's insta-love stretches credulity right away, as does the fact that Sam, despite being raised More...

Wowza. I don't know what to say.

I loved the book. I couldn't put it down. Another one that I read on my phone anytime I had a spare moment. I will agree with other reviewers who said that the relationship between Sam and Emily didn't have much development. But what's funny is that's not the point of the story. This book is a perfect example of an omniscient narrator. Imagine that this book takes place in a snow globe full of people, and you're watching everything from above. You're not going to More...

I love this book so much! It was what I had expected and so much more!

I absolutely adore how Emily and Sam met because of music. I have a weakness for all things musical so it was just perfect how their story starts with ‘I’ll Be There’ (perfect title for the book by the way). This was so much more than a love story between boy and girl. It’s about family too. I love all the different relationships: Sam and Riddle, Emily and Sam, Riddle and Debbie, Emily’s family with Sam and Riddle. It was jus More...

Aspendos Yayınevi’nden çıkmış olan “ Holly Goldberg Sloan’ın Daima Seninle”, adlı kitabını bitirmiş bulunmaktayım .Aslında daha önce bitebilirdi fakat birkaç gündür rahatsızdım bir ıkı gün sarktı bitmesi .
Öncelikle kitabın tanıtımı yapıldığı zaman , kitabın kapağı ve ismi benı çok etkilemişti .Sade bir kapak tasarımına sahip olmasına rağmen ben çok beğendim .Sonra konusunu okuduğumda bu kitabın benlik olduğuna karar verip , aldım .

İyiki de alıp okumuşum diyorum , gerek sayfa kalitesi , gerek iç More...

Ist im Leben alles vorher bestimmt? Alles Schicksal? Von irgendwem zu irgendeinem Zeitpunkt so beschlossen und festgelegt? Dies glaub zumindest Emily Bell.
Sam Border dagegen hat aufgehört daran zu glauben, dass es in seinem Leben jemals etwas Gutes geben wird. Abgesehen von seinem kleinen, autistischen Bruder Riddle.
Bis das Schicksal diese beiden Menschen zusammen führt und Sam, wie auch Riddle, anfangen ein wenig Hoffnung zu hegen. Und auch Emily werden durch Sam die Augen geöffnet und sie fäng More...

Coincidences can lead to serendipity which leads to a happy ending. 17 year old Sam lives with his controlling, mentally ill, thieving father, who is always abruptly moving Sam and his 12 year old brother Riddle around from town to town. He kidnapped them from their mother, basically, when the boys were younger, because he was paranoid about being caught at his robberies. Sam has musical talents, and Riddle hardly ever talks but draws detailed electronics schematics in a phone book he totes arou More...

Inhalt
Der Inhalt kommt dem Klappentext sehr nahe.
Als Emily Bell von ihrem musikalischen Vater dazu genötigt wird, in seinem Kirchenchor ein Solo zu singen, obwohl sie kein Talent fürs Singen hat, trifft sie in ihrer Verzweiflung vor der Kirche Sam, einen hübschen 17-jährigen Jungen. Er ist geheimnisvoll, und als sie ihn vor einem Restaurant wieder trifft, spricht sie ihn an. Sie gehören zusammen- aber Emily und auch ihre Eltern merken, dass Sam und auch sein kleiner Bruder Riddle ein düsteres Ge More...

The book is like any other book in it's genre. The main female character is so dependent on the main male character that there comes a point when you think she can't function without him. What annoys me the most in books like this is when the person falls in love and thinks they can't do anything without their other half and seem to forget that they had a life before they met the person they fell in love with.

Emily constantly said she hated girls who kept waiting around for a boy to call or cou More...

This is a very hard book to categorize--in fact, it's more like several different books in one. Its success depends on how well the readers likes the different elements and also how well they're woven together. As a book about a boy taking care of his brother and helping them both survive a truly horrific but, unfortunately, believable father, it worked very, very well for me. As a romance, it didn't work at all for me.(He's the most beautiful boy anyone has ever seen! There's an instant connect More...

They weren’t supposed to meet. Emily was doing her duty by singing in the church and staring off into the back row to keep her concentration and her eyes fell upon Sam. Sam was drawn to the church’s music and he wanted to remain transparent but Emily’s eyes locked on him and the rest is history. Sam’s life is always been transparent, well at least since his father kidnapped his brother and him from his mother when he was a child and they have been on the run since. His father’s motto was to have More...

Overall, I'd say well worth reading, I really enjoyed the story, but there were some things that distracted me, hence the 3 stars.

I liked least:
The first few pages didn't catch me. That's harsh, but hey. If someone hadn't recommended the book to me, I may have put it down based on the first few pages. Also, the ending felt a little too much like a "let's wrap up the movie with a tight little bow."
The thing writers also love to do in on t.v., especially in sitcoms, which is what I'll describe as More...

This book seemed different to me than a lot of the other YA books out there. In the first few chapters I remember feeling really connected to the characters and their emotions. I don't know what exactly triggered the emotional response I had, but it was there, and that was what kept me reading. I really liked Sam and Emily as characters and I was really interested in their stories, but their actual relationship was hard to grasp. It didn't feel artificial at all, as many YA relationships can, I More...

Let me just say that I love the cover of this book. Like seriously. I could just stare at the cover. I love the colors and the scene with the stars in the background. The shadowing. Everything. Except that it has nothing to do with the story, but then I focus on the image again and forget about that tiny detail and fall in love with the cover again.
The book started a bit slow for me, but that could have been because I was reading at work during my class' nap time and was constantly shushing peo More...

Sam doesn’t remember too much from before his dad took him and his little brother away from home for a life on the run. He just knows that it’s important that he not attract attention to himself when he goes out. But when he makes a connection with Emily, he suddenly doesn’t want to be anonymous anymore. Soon Sam and his younger brother Riddle are interacting with other people for the first time in 10 years. Even though they know it won’t be long before their father moves them along again, they More...

I mostly loved this book, thought the writing was beautiful and spare, and the story and characters intriguing and real. Some minor exceptions:

I never felt connected to Sam and Emily's relationship. I liked them both individually as characters, and felt their pain, especially Sam's. But there just wasn't enough of THEM for me to really believe in the intensity of their feelings for each other.
WTF happened to Bobby? At first he just seemed like a flawed but sympathetic character, but by the end S More...

21 January 2011 I'LL BE THERE by Holly Goldberg Sloan, Little Brown, May 2011, 393p., ISBN: 978-0-316-12279-5

"You and I must make a pact..."-- Berry Gordy, Bob West, Hal David, Willie Hutch, "I'll Be There"

"Sam thought about going back to the First Unitarians. But it wasn't possible."When you spend ten years being invisible, when you no longer know where you were born, and are not even sure when you were born (it had to have been the summer, because there were memories of an ice-cream cake and r More...

Review - I'll Be There - Holly Goldberg Sloan

I'll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan
May 17, 2011
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 400 pages
Source: Amazon.com

Sam Border wishes he could escape. Raised by an unstable father, he's spent his life moving from place to place. But he could never abandon his little brother, Riddle.

Riddle Border doesn't talk much. Instead, he draws pictures of the insides of things and waits for the day when the outsides of things will make sense. He worships his olde More...

When Emily Bell's father makes her sing a solo of "I'll Be There" in church, it sets off a chain of events that changes her whole life. Emily doesn't have a good singing voice and doesn't want to sing the solo; during it, she focuses on the very back of the church, or more specifically, the boy sitting in the back of the church. Sam likes music and has attended church that day to hear the music. When an embarrassed Emily runs out after her performance, he follows. But their romance isn't easy, t More...

17-year-old Sam and his little brother Riddle's unstable, mentally ill, criminal dad Clarence has dragged them from one side of the US to the other, never allowing them to go to school or the doctor. In fact, he doesn't even bother to feed them; the brothers live off food scavenged from trash cans, plus whatever small amount of money Sam can make with odd jobs. They never stay anywhere long; when Clarence has stolen enough to make people notice, they always move on.

But in this new town, somethin More...