Review: Where She Went (If I Stay #2)

Where She Went (If I Stay #2)
Gayle Forman

Published By: Doubleday
Publication Date: April 28, 2011
Date Read: December 8, 2019
Genre: YA - Contemporary Romance
Source: Bought
Format: Paperback
Pages: 264

From Goodreads:
If you had a second chance at first love... would you take it?

It's been three years since Adam's love saved Mia after the accident that annihilated life as she knew it... and three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life forever.

Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Julliard's rising star and Adam is LA tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia's home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future-and each other.

Told from Adam's point of view in the spare, powerful prose that defined If I Stay, Where She Went explores the devastation of grief, the promise of new hope, and the flame of rekindled romance

"You were so busy trying to be my savior that you left me all alone."

If I Stay was a book that I was late to the party in reading, having only picked it up in 2019 and I loved every moment of it. I picked up Where She Went straight away but put it down as I was absolutely heartbroken right at the beginning seeing that Mia and Adam were no longer together. After a few months of reading other books I decided to pick this one up again and as heartbroken as I was I gave it a chance and I absolutely loved this book. I actually think I preferred it to the first book in the series.

Where She Went is set three years after If I Stay and follows Adam, now a rock star, living his crazy life of concerts and tabloids. When a chance encounter throws Adam back in the path of Mia they explore the city together for one night catching up on the past three years.

Where She Went completely and utterly broke my heart. I fell head over heels in love with Adam in the first book of this series so to see him so utterly unhappy and heartbroken, wondering what he did wrong to make Mia leave absolutely crushed me. I was so angry with Mia at the start but the more I read the more I realised why she did it. Where She Went takes you on a beautiful journey once again and it made me fall in love with both of these characters even more.

Where She Went was a beautiful conclusion to this series and I absolutely loved it. It was heartwarming and incredible. It brought so much more depth to these characters and their lives and it was utterly stunning.

"It felt like a gift. From them. For my first recital ever, they gave me a cello. And for this one, they gave me you."