Dear Ms. Forman,

Can I call you Gayle? After all, you've reduced me to a snotty, hiccuping mess twice now. That ought to put us on a first name basis. The last time I wrote you was right after I finished If I Stay. Nothing makes me feel quite as raw as something that rips the lid off my fear of death, and did that book ever pick my shaking little bones clean. But it's okay. Going through that once, it's all good. That's what a good book is supposed to do to you, right? Great books evoke emotional responses. Crying is a barometer for your empathy, for your soul. And who wouldn't cry for Mia, after what she went through? Losing your entire family in one swoop, and then deciding to keep on keepin' on despite the horrific loss. .. I can't imagine that Mia's bravery and resolve wouldn't affect a person. I didn't think I'd cry like that again for quite some time.

I guess somewhere in there I did kind of forget about Adam. . . Again, you and your setups.

I don't know how, but you did it again, but this time it was with a pill popping, emo dripping, reclusive, self-loather. I was in tears by page 100, and you managed to do it with a type I normally despise. I kept thinking the same thing in awed wonder:"Oh, that wench. She's killing me again." I mean that without ire and with a certain kind of admiration. I don't name call unless I care.

Honestly, it was easier when it was the girl breaking my heart. Oh, but Adam, you can't hate the guy who got Mia to come back. It's not possible. If love can do that, it can do anything right? His voice and promise were the Lorenzo's Oil of young adult tragedy.

I guess somewhere along the line, we've become something of a Kim to Mia in our minds, and we admired Adam for his devotion to her. I guess somewhere we figured that Adam was fine being a shelf of support for Mia, and we forgot that he might need one, too. I guess we kind of forgot that her whole family had become his.

Adam's feelings of loss are tough in this one. I think it's always tough when you are the secondary mourner, the one who doesn't have any right to treat the loss as your own. When someone close to you loses a blood relative whom you also loved, there in something in you that feels like you don't have the right to treat the loss as your own. Sometimes all you have left is the one you have to be there for. And when that person chooses to leave you. . .Christ, what the hell are you worth then? I see why Adam has issues.

There might have been flaws in Where She Went. I wouldn't know. I was too busy being in the moment with them, crossing my fingers and wanting/hoping/praying they left with closure. So, if there were any, they didn't matter - they were overpowered by the emotion. Adam's flashbacks, his internal monologue and their conversation, their reckoning . . . I didn't think you could do it again, but you did. You left me without the ability to write an actual review. I think it was actually tougher (and better) this time because we already know them both. I mean, I'm writing this thing on a Monday during my lunch break, but I finished it last Thursday. I thought the distance would give me insight, but here I am, tearing up again.

You nailed it again, Gayle. I doubt we'll ever see Adam and Mia in any more books, but I do hope you will continue to bring your brand of evocative and emotional writing to the table again and again.

As for making me cry, I am going to steal a line and say, "So, dude. Bygones."

Best,
Linds