History Is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“History is nothing. It can be recycled or thrown away completely. It isn’t this sacred treasure chest I mistook it to be. We were something, but history isn’t enough to keep something alive forever.”- History Is All You Left Me, Adam Silvera

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.

I like Adam Silvera. He's an author whose popularity- despite only having two books out- I can understand completely. He writes short and easy to swallow contemporaries that follow gay male main characters. Because I often compartmentalize authors and books, I put him with authors like John Corey Whaley and Shaun David Hutchinson. Especially Shaun David Hutchinson, for some reason (though Hutchinson's books are far heavier reads).

And I enjoyed this book, mostly. I was surprised that, for a book with such a heavy plotline, just how much it felt like a light, summery contemporary. Hate to say it, but the word shallow comes to mind. Not shallow as in the reality TV superficial sense, but more like surface level. The emotions felt brushed upon, or not quite explored in the depth they could have been.

I also noticed that there were a lot of scenes that had a lot of potential for interesting character play- like when Griffin meets Jackson's friends the first time- but they felt rushed through. That conversation could have taken up a whole chapter and Silvera could have really expanded on the characters and given us a ton of insight into Jackson's character and also Theo when he was with Jackson, but instead we only got like two pages. It made me wonder that perhaps Silvera had a great idea in mind as to how that scene was going to play out, but once he actually sat down in front of his computer, it didn't flow as nicely as it did in his head. I've been there (of course, I'm not a published author...).

Another thing that's minor but I didn't really enjoy is that I don't know how well this book will age. Lots of mentions of nerdy things and squad and all that. I mean, not so much that I, with a middling at best grasp on current pop culture outside the literary realm, would have no idea what any of the dialogue or references mean, but still. I think about things like this.

But I did enjoy the characters, and even the plot. This is really my favorite type of LGBT book to read, when the character(s)' sexuality is a nonissue. It limits the amount of fetishization of the couples in this book because they're basically like any straight couple. Hell, even the arguments they have aren't surrounding their own sexualities, they're about things that any couple would fight about. I also liked how non stereotypical the gay characters were.

I found Griffin really endearing, as well as Jackson. The only character I think I was supposed to like but really didn't was Theo. I didn't entirely trust him at the beginning but as the book progressed I grew to not like him even more. I wouldn't say hate, because I didn't hate him, but how he treated both Griffin and Jackson annoyed the living hell out of me. They both deserved better than him (side note: God, I really hope people don't start shipping Griffin and Jackson. Can you imagine dating/fucking someone who looks just like you? Eeek.). A lot of Theo's actions that came out towards the end of the book also made me kind of uncomfortable. 

But I think the ultimate message of this book was a great one. I like the realization of Griffin that Theo wasn't this perfect being that he always thought he (Theo) was, and that despite this he still held some love for Theo was a really great conclusion, along with the message that it's okay to move on are messages that aren't often seen. In so many YA novels, once it is revealed someone isn't perfect and did (God I hate this word) problematic things, they are often knocked down to the ground and trampled on, and once the love interest dies, the protagonist might as well be killed off too because moving on is so unromantic. I'm not saying you have to move on right away, or even at all (some people don't; my grandmother never remarried after my grandfather's death and she is a lovely woman inside and out), but you shouldn't let the death of someone you love get in the way of finding happiness. I'm really tempted to make a Moonstruck reference here, but I can't figure out a good way to make it fit. 

My final thoughts on this book are that this is a short and sweet contemporary but not one that is particularly deep or impactful, at least to me. The writing could have some improvements, but overall I enjoyed it. I would still recommend More Happy Than Not before I would this novel, but I wouldn't write this one off. I'd say this would be a good middle grade novel, though it depends on your position on the prudishness scale- there is a lot of sex, none of it in depth descriptions, but still. I'd say the best age group to read it would be 9th and 10th grade (so like 14-15 year olds). 

7.5 out of 10