History is All You Left Me by Adam Silvera

Let me start this review by saying this is an extremely well-written book. I want to get that out there because honestly, it's hard for me to articulate what I thought of this book and I want to sing its praises before I seem too negative. All the characters in this book are so compelling and fleshed out and it's because of this that the emotions created are so strong. The author skates dangerously close to 'John Green' syndrome (pretentious characters that don't speak or act like real people) but skilfully manages to avoid it. I spent almost this entire book feeling like it should be irritating me and yet finding myself unable to put it down.

History is All You Left Me is the story of Griff, a gay teenager dealing with the sudden death of his ex-boyfriend and best friend Theo. It addresses his regret at initially ending the relationship when Theo went off to college, as well as his mixed feelings towards Theo's current boyfriend Jackson. This is utterly unlike any other book I have ever read plotwise and that certainly helped it a lot. It also has a very subversive plot compared to typical YA romance. While admittedly I did see most of the 'twists' coming, I probably wouldn't if I were the intended audience and I thought they were handled very cleverly. All the 'twists' were incredibly understated and woven very naturally into the narrative, so that even if I had found them surprising I would not have been rudely jerked out of the story. The fact remains that this book tells the kind of love story not often seen in YA fiction and it felt very mature and realistic because of it. I loved that Griff also got over his first love and had to cope with his guilt about that fact, despite being very close with Theo still.

Aaaaand now for the negatives. As much as I did enjoy this book, there were several elements that felt...off. I absolutely HATED (spoilered though you can guess from the back) the fact that Griff and Jackson slept together. It didn't really seem to fit in with the plot or characters and honestly, I think it's something the author had in mind from the start but didn't adapt once he actually started writing it. I also found it hard to identify with Griff a lot of the time. He just seemed to make bad decision after bad decision with no real self-awareness/attempt to rectify these bad decisions. Having said that, I did enjoy his character a lot. I think the only character that didn't seem all that well-developed was Wayne who was another of the slightly-off elements.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book. It is commendable alone for the positive and varied portrayal of LGBT teens/relationships, but it is also so much more than that. A fascinating book and one I will not be forgetting in a hurry.

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