Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25014114-history-is-all-you-left-me?ac=1&from_search=true
My rating: 5/5
Plot:
Griffin's first love,best friend and all around favourite person,Theo has died and Griff has to come to terms with this tragedy.To everyone's surprise,including Griffin's,a real comfort throughout this process comes from Theo's university boyfriend,Jackson.This whole process of overcoming the grief caused by Theo's death is made even harder by his struggle with his own issues,his compulsions taking over his life little by little.A story of grief,growing up and living with a mental illness,History is all you left me is meant to blow you away.
My thoughts:
I still can't possibly manage to tie together words to properly express my love for this book,so I might as well give it a shot since it'll never be a perfect representation of my feelings anyway. Just to get it out of the way,THIS BOOK IS HELLA SAD.Like,SO SAD.Like,ALL OF THE SAD.Like,makes you want to put it down and cry yourself to sleep hugging a pillow sad.Like sob uncontrollably at 3am kinda sad.I think you get the gist of it,this is just really freaking sad. Now,the book follows our protagonist Griffin who has to make peace with his ex-boyfriend Theo's death (Theo also being his best friend in the whole world,all around favourite person and possibly greatest love of his life,as it if wasn't sad enough already) and finding an unlikely ally through this process in Theo's boyfriend,Jackson.As if Griffin's life wasn't messy enough just because of this,he also has to deal with his mental illness which is affecting his everyday life in a very serious manner.The story is SO DIVERSE and also qualifies as #ownvoices,the author himself being queer and living with OCD. The writing style has such a nice flow to it and is so witty and amazing that I feel like I just need to read more of Adam's books asap to experience more of it.HE LITERALLY GOT ME EXCITED OVER THE USE OF DIFFERENT PERSONS WHEN IT CAME TO VERBS IN THE NARRATIVE,WHAT KIND OF LEGEND DOES THAT!?Honestly,I,like the absolute nerd that I am,highly appreciate the stylistic meaning behind the usage of different verbal persons and forms of narration,so the alternation of 1st/2nd person (in a sort addressed monologue type of way) and regular 3rd person narration had me all kinds of shook (I seem to be unable to find a better fitting word,so this one describes my feelings perfectly). All of the characters are so complex and interesting and I love how part of the reason why I love them is because they're all flawed in their own type of way.I know it might sound off,but I loved and felt for Griff most of all whenever he'd make choices that had me shaking my head in disapproval.Because people are flawed and people in pain tend to make choices that don't seem to make sense.I feel like this portrayed a whole different level of vulnerability for all the characters,showing that they're not perfect and that even though they were presented in one way at the beginning,you can still learn new things about them and see them in a different light,while still realising that both images are relevant to who they are.I loved Griff and obviously felt for him the most,got so invested in his story and his grief and just connected to him on an emotional level even though I've never been put in any situation that'd be even remotely similar to his.I felt for Jackson and his struggle and appreciated both what he had with Theo and his dynamics with Griff.Theo himself was probably my favourite character throughout most of the book and the one I personally identified with the most because of his quirkiness and his knowledge of countless random pieces of information. Wade is just an absolute sweetheart and HE BAKES CUPCAKES,HOW MUCH CUTER CAN HE GET?! Clearly,as you can tell,Adam does an utterly exquisite job when it comes to creating these round,complex,well shaped characters and showing both their qualities and their flaws.Believe it or not,he also manages to portray very different,yet equally complex dynamics between all of them and it's just a wonder to see how everyone interacts. While obviously the main theme of the book is grief (recovery and overcoming this being a huge secondary theme as well,both because of said grief and pain,but also trying to come to terms and handle the compulsions that have taken over Griff's life),there are a lot of other themes I noticed and appreciated.Mental health representation is obviously something I appreciated seeing,it was so well flashed out,brilliantly and complexly portrayed,talked about openly and clearly,AND THEY TALKED ABOUT THERAPY,YES.Also,I thought Adam did a phenomenal job in portraying how one often tends to get stuck on their idea of someone and who they are or were instead of accepting who the person is at the moment and falling in love with that ideal and fitting the person to it.Additionally,the way drifting apart from people once you grow up and inevitably lose touch,see each other less often,have a fall out,etc was so painful,yet so realistic and something I truly,truly adored seeing. THE POP CULTURE REFERENCES!I now feel compelled to finally watch Star Wars purely because of all these references,not gonna lie.Also,HARRY POTTER,OF COURSE I'M LIVING FOR HARRY POTTER REFERENCES,WHO DO YOU THINK I AM?!Not to mention anyone that can appreciate the perfection that Cedric Diggory is as a character is a friend of mine automatically.Sorry,I don't make the rules. Anyway,this is as eloquent I'm ever getting because of feeling all the feels,so yeah.JUST READ THIS BOOK
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