Review: When You Were Here – Daisy Whitney

Filled with humor, raw emotion, a strong voice, and a brilliant dog named Sandy Koufax, When You Were Here explores the two most powerful forces known to man-death and love. Daisy Whitney brings her characters to life with a deft touch and resonating authenticity.

Danny’s mother lost her five-year battle with cancer three weeks before his graduation-the one day that she was hanging on to see.

Now Danny is left alone, with only his memories, his dog, and his heart-breaking ex-girlfriend for company. He doesn’t know how to figure out what to do with her estate, what to say for his Valedictorian speech, let alone how to live or be happy anymore.

When he gets a letter from his mom’s property manager in Tokyo, where she had been going for treatment, it shows a side of his mother he never knew. So, with no other sense of direction, Danny travels to Tokyo to connect with his mother’s memory and make sense of her final months, which seemed filled with more joy than Danny ever knew. There, among the cherry blossoms, temples, and crowds, and with the help of an almost-but-definitely-not Harajuku girl, he begins to see how it may not have been ancient magic or mystical treatment that kept his mother going. Perhaps, the secret of how to live lies in how she died.

Series:
Release Date: June 4, 2013
Publisher: Little, Brown
Source: NetGalley
Reviewer: Shannon
Rating:

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Reviewer’s Thoughts

This was one of those books that as I read it, the constant question that ran through my mind was “How much more bad stuff can this kid endure?”

Danny Kellerman is a few days from graduation and a summer that should be filled with fun, his dog Sandy Kolfax, and his girl.  Instead Danny is left dealing with the aftermath of his mother’s death and trying to figure out what he’s supposed to do now.  That question will take Danny on a journey from California to Japan as he tries to piece together the last months of his mother’s life and make a decision about who he is and what he wants.

My heart broke for Danny.  The last six years of his life were a lesson in how to deal with tragedy.  Remarkably, he was able to excel at school, do what teenage boys do while still being there for his incredibly sick mother.  But when she dies, he falls apart.  He questions everything and figured the only way he could get away from all the sadness surrounding him was to go to Japan and figure out what to do with his mother’s apartment there.  For me, Japan was the key for allowing Danny to move forward.  Not only did he get answers about what was happening with his mother, he found the key to what was happening with himself and his girlfriend, Holland.

There was one character who I absolutely loved.  Kana is the daughter of the woman who takes care of Danny’s mother’s apartment in Japan.  She’s this mixture of old and new world Japanese culture and a breathe of fresh air in Danny’s world.  She becomes his best friend and the voice of reason he needs to get past every little detail he gets stuck on.  She’s able to share information about his mother (since she was her friend too) and give him insight that changes the way the sees his family.  She’s an absolute delight and a character I longed to read about in the story.

WHEN YOU WERE  HERE is a heartbreaking story that transitions over to a coming of age one.  While I my first thought is still the question I have above, the author was able to create a story that while depressing at times had me unwilling to put the book down until I knew Danny was going to be ok.