"I Was Here"

I might have forgotten to update you about my results but they aren’t really worth mentioning. Mostly, because they suck and I’m quite ashamed of my performance, as much as it was expected. Still, it was kind of sucker punch to the face or having a bucket of cold water splashed over your head moment. I didn’t like it. As expected, I did badly. And as expected, everyone was sort of disappointed even though they claimed that “you did really well! Excellent results! Good job!” It wasn’t something that could be covered up with phony pep talks although their effort was and is greatly appreciated. Of course, like all shitty things that happen in life, my grandma was subtle about talking to me about it at first, spilling words of comfort on me like I was ice-cream and the words were candies but soon after, the you could’ve done better or this only happened not because you’re stupid but because you didn’t study hard enough came pouring out like Pepsi out of a shaken can. But, whatever. I’m trying to get over it, if only she’d just let it go.

Anyway, I just finished a book. The first book I’ve finished in most likely, a year. Kind of a big deal to me right now. To say I’ve lost interest in reading would be a less shadowy way of telling people that I’ve changed and not for the better, I don’t think. I’ve always enjoyed, loved reading but last year, it was just improbable for me. I barely had enough concentration and energy left to go over school books, what more to say about leisure reads? I wanted to, but the more I red, the more dyslexic I felt I was becoming. The words were almost always swimming around after spending five or ten minutes on it and after countless attempts and lying six feet deep in the sands of denial, I chose the only option I had –I gave up. I just couldn’t do it anymore. So, for the whole of last year and parts of the year before that, I stopped being a reader. I stopped being a lot of things I used to be.

Now that the phase is starting to feel more like a phase rather than something that’s here to leech off of you for the rest of your life, I’ve been trying to push myself to pick up reading again. It wasn’t easy, it still isn’t but I like to think I’m going somewhere with it and today is proof of that. During my post-SPM days, I think I tried to read and finish at least 5 books, but to this day I have yet to see any of them through. Yes, they were old books and most of them I’ve already read if not once, then twice but they didn’t appeal to me any less. If anything, I was absolutely thrilled to read them again because as a used-to-be avid reader, I love picking up on words, phrases and the hidden meanings I might have missed first time round. So yeah, second readings are fun. They provide you with further confirmation and insights on the book you thought you knew inside-out but in fact, didn’t. Kind of like having a best friend and constantly asking them the same questions on the same things, just to see if their answers would remain the same because if they happened to have a change of perception or heart one day, you wouldn’t be left in the dark about it.

Right, back to the book. I guess since the actual, actual reason for me not reading for about a year and a half, or more, I’m not sure, was because of health issues related to the mentalities, it was only natural that the first book I finish in what felt like eternity, had something to do with well, that. The synopsis at the back of book started off like this, “I regret to inform you that I have had to take my own life…” As depressing as it sounds, it’s actually not that depressing of a book. When my family and I were at the bookstore and I asked my mom if I could borrow some money for the book because I didn’t have enough with me, borrow because I felt bad for just straight up asking money from her, she asked what book? And being the little ball of mischief my brother was, he answered Fifty Shades something and that of course, got her attention so she insisted that I show her the book and proceeded to checking it out. The first thing she said when she started reading the back of the book was oh my god, which gradually turned into this is depressing, why would you read something like this, it makes me want to kill myself. While on the surface, I looked to be shrugging of her reaction but in all actuality, my insides were laughing their asses, if they had one, off. The whole time they were thinking to themselves, “what normal person, teenager would read something so sick,” I was trailing behind them, stuck in my little world of amusement, choking back laughter that was dying to get out there. Oh, if only they knew. If only.

The author of the book is actually the person who wrote Where She Went and the prequel before that, If I Stay which has been adapted into a movie I’ve yet to watch but really want to. While reading I Was Here, my emotions were surprisingly, not on a roller-coaster ride. They were a straight line. Literally, a straight line. It was not until the end of the book I cracked a few tears but that escalated as quickly and sudden as it came and it was all downhill after that. To put it frankly, the book was a disappointment. The beginning was alright, with the element of surprise still in the air. Then came the middle and it got a little draggy, unnecessary which is funny because the book itself isn’t thick; it was actually one of the shortest novels I’ve read. And then there was the sort-of climax, which didn’t feel like a climax at all because things were unfolding so slowly but everything was explained in the last few pages like why the climax wasn’t climax-y at all and I was like alright, yeah I could work with this, but then the most cheesy and clichéd ending happened and I almost threw the book across the room. Not that I have anything against cheesy clichés, but this particular book ending just made me cringe over and over again.

Okay, I’m going to try to explain this in the simplest way possible. So basically, the whole book’s about this dead girl’s best friend running around town and then going back and forth between two towns after her BFF offed herself because she discovered some dirty secret about her BFF right before her suicide which raised suspicions and blablableh. We get that suicides are a very scary, sensitive thing to talk or even think about so one would automatically think of this book as deep, emotional and gut-wrenching because hello, we’ve all read books or articles about people getting over deaths at one point of our lives so we know just how much of an emotional roller-coaster ride reading all that is. Maybe this is why I was so disappointed with the book, because it wasn’t emotional enough.

Like, it had its fair share of mystery, tragedy and yeah, romance too and they were all pretty solid but when your best friend just killed herself over God-knows what and had a serious problem she kept secret for as long as your friendship with her lasted, which is a pretty long period of time until she died that is, collected and sane aren’t exactly the two words to describe you with. Not even close. But shockingly, these would be the best two words I could use to draw a picture of what the protagonist’s thoughts looked or felt like because if my best friend died and if I really thought of her as the best friend, I’d be an emotional wreck and not someone calm as fuck with collected and sensible thoughts. I wouldn’t be thinking about the weather, or other people or how I looked because every thought I’d have, it would be of her or something related to her. And I’d look like the meeting, or collision point of shock, confusion, anger, sadness, regret and all things bad. But that was not how Cody, the living best friend was portrayed. And I guess it kind of just ticked me off, that she wasn’t completely focused on her dead best friend. Instead, she was getting distracted by people, boys especially and other irrelevant stuff. I get that it happens, and that everyone’s different so the way they deal would be different too, but if there’s anything that connects us humans together, it’d be death. Death is mutual. We all die and we all feel the lingering after-effects of death when someone we know dies.  So, even if it were different, it couldn’t be all that different, could it?

Yeah, in shorter words, I like the beginning of the book and hate the end, but holistically, I like it. I like how some of the sentences, phrases were put and I like the author’s thinking at certain parts of the book. The conversations between characters were mellow, hollow and highly unforgettable although there were a few witty comebacks every now and then before they took a sudden turn towards cheesy as fuck lane at the end. And that was just messed up. They say love changes people, but the change doesn’t just happen overnight, does it?