Want List could be taken as an offshoot off of the Waiting on Wednesday feature but I’ve renamed it so it fits my blog better.
When You Were Here by Daisy Whitney came out on June 4th (but I’m featuring it anyway) and Magan’s review of it at Rather Be Reading reminded me that I really need to read this book. I haven’t read a mellow, elegiac and emotional read in a while and When You Were Here seems to be the perfect fit.
I first heard about When You Were Here in January through Jaime’s blog, The Perpetual Page-Turner and I knew that I had to get my hands on a copy. When You Were Here is the story of Danny, a recent high school graduate who lost his mom to cancer three weeks before graduation, making him an orphan and through it all, Danny has to make his valedictorian speech about the future ahead of him, something he isn’t even sure about, deal with his mother’s belongings and come to terms with his mother’s death. All he has left are the memories of her and his ex-girlfriend who broke his heart, who suddenly reappears in his life, and his dog for company. Suddenly, his mother’s property manager in Tokyo, where Danny’s mother had been going for treatment, sends him a letter, allowing Danny to see a side of his mother he’d never seen. Danny decides to go to Tokyo to figure out who his mother really was and see why she was so happy in her last months.
I like the premise of the book and all the things that are in it– graduation, heart-break (I need some emotional things in my life sometimes) and coming to terms with death. For some reason I tend to prefer mellow and elegiac novels in the summer (I have no idea why) and this seems to be the perfect fit.
Anyway, I know what I’ll be doing this weekend– busy picking up a copy of this book.
Image Sources:
Graduation hat: LJDJSBlog
Tokyo: Tourist Destinations
Lake: Unsplash (great stock image source, btw)
P.S The lake image is there because looking at it makes me feel calm.
