Where She Went

Starred review from February 28, 2011
"I know it's really cheesy—crass even—to compare my being dumped to the accident that killed Mia's family, but I can't help it. Because for me, at any rate, the aftermath felt exactly the same." Forman follows up her bestselling If I Stay with a story that is equally if not more powerful, set three years after the previous book and told from the perspective of Mia's former boyfriend, Adam. Mia and Adam haven't seen each other since she left for Juilliard, deserting him just months after emerging from her coma. Adam's anguish found an outlet in songwriting, and the resulting album, Collateral Damage, has become a sensation, turning Adam and his band into bona fide rock stars, though he's barely keeping it together. Mia's career as a cellist is taking off as well, and a chance meeting in New York City gives Mia and Adam the opportunity to exorcise the ghosts of their past. Having spent If I Stay in Mia's head, readers are, like Adam, thrust into a state of unknowing regarding Mia's thoughts and motivations. It's an extremely effective device, and one that makes this reunion all the more heartrending. Ages 14–up.

March 1, 2011

In this compelling sequel to If I Stay (2009), Forman fast forwards three years in the lives of Mia and Adam, two budding musicians. They had been lovers, bound by an intimate and painful past that included the accidental death of Mia's family in an automobile accident. Whereas the prior title focused on Mia and her decision to remain alive as her body lay in a hospital between life and death, this book focuses on Adam, now an angst-ridden rock star. This installment reintroduces the pair as virtual strangers who have not interacted since Mia left for college three years prior and cut off communication with Adam. Unsurprisingly the power of music reunites the couple in a chance meeting at Carnegie Hall, where Mia, now a world-renowned cellist, takes center stage. Their reunion sets off a fast-paced, one-night tour of New York City, who in which Mia introduces Adam to her favorite haunts and new reality. Throughout the night, they both struggle to make sense of their feelings and to find closure, all revealed in Adam's agonized present-tense narration. Although their story is compressed into 24 hours, both characters spring to life, and their pain-filled back story and current realities provide depth and will hold readers fast. (Fiction. YA)

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

March 1, 2011

Gr 9 Up-Three years after the tragic accident that killed the family of his former girlfriend, Mia Hall, the now-famous rock star Adam Wilde finds himself at New York City's Carnegie Hall for Mia's breakout cello concert. Convinced that merely hearing her play will be enough to satisfy his curiosity, Adam hides in the audience but is stunned when she asks him to come backstage after the show. Their awkward reunion sparks a night of painful reminiscing, heartbreaking closure, and hopeful discoveries. Using the voice of Adam, Forman continues the gripping narrative started in If I Stay (Dutton, 2009). After months of rehab from the car accident, Mia leaves Oregon for the east coast to attend the prestigious Juilliard School. Adam remains on the west coast to pursue his own rising musical career as the lead in his band. Mysteriously Mia cuts off all contact with him. Simultaneously freed and abandoned, Adam plunges into a depression, which also fuels the writing that launches his band to stardom. This novel is best suited to readers familiar with the first book. However, Forman convincingly establishes the relationship with flashbacks and Adam's current angst. Though not as poignant as its predecessor, this book has compelling characters and a romance so deliciously fated that readers will be willing to suspend believability and embrace the growing mood of a fairy tale. Fans of the exceptional first novel won't be able to put this one down.-Lynn Rashid, Marriotts Ridge High School, Marriottsville, MD

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2011
Grades 10-1 This companion to Formans New York Times best-seller, If I Stay (2009), picks up three years after Oregon teen Mia survived the car accident that killed her parents and brother. Compacted once again into a 24-hour period of seismic emotional shifts, this time the story is narrated by Mias former boyfriend, Adam. Still haunted by the bewildering dissolution of their relationship, Adam, now a punk-rock star, stumbles across a concert in which Mia, a rising cellist, will perform solo. His spontaneous ticket purchase begins their awkward, charged reunion, and in a sleepless night spent roaming New York City, they talk, argue, and gradually recapture the profound, enduring bonds between them. As in If I Stay, Forman tells an emotionally wrenching story that believably captures the mature depth and intensity possible in teenage love as well as the infinite ways that grief of all kinds permeates daily life, from the wormholes of memory that spin out from small moments to the unconscious ways that past pain can influence present decisions. Sure to please the first books legions of fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

May 1, 2011
In If I Stay (rev. 7/09), Adam's love pulled Mia back from the brink of death after a tragic automobile accident. The sequel finds Adam three years after Mia dumped him, drowning in the pain of losing her. Separated by the weight of grief (Mia's entire family died in the car crash), Adam and Mia's lives have grown worlds apart. Mia is a gifted cellist making her Carnegie Hall debut, while Adam is a paparazzi-hounded rock star with a platinum record. Despite his fame and an A-list Hollywood girlfriend, Adam is still consumed with love for Mia and depends on a cabinet full of prescription drugs to combat anxiety and sleeplessness. Fate brings the two together in New York City right before each is set to leave on tour; tension mounts and sparks fly as Mia shows Adam her New York and Adam braces himself to find out why she left him. While flashing back to fill in Adam's rise to stardom, encounters with groupies, and alienation from his bandmates, the immediate story takes place in just one night, and Mia and Adam's imminent separation heightens the romance. Though not as gripping as If I Stay, Where She Went's angst-ridden narrative offers the appeal of a sensitive rock star whose only hope for salvation is true love. lauren adams

(Copyright 2011 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)