Review: Then You Were Gone by Lauren Strasnick

Title: Then You Were Gone
Author: Lauren Strasnick
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Release date: January 8th 2013
Pages: 224
Genre: Young Adult contemporary mystery
Source: Bought

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Two years ago, Adrienne’s best friend, Dakota, walked out of her life. One week ago, she left Adrienne a desperate, muffled voicemail. Adrienne never called back.
Now Dakota is missing, and all that remains is a string of broken hearts, a flurry of rumors, and a suicide note.
Adrienne can’t stop obsessing over what might have happened if she’d answered Dakota’s call. And she’s growing more convinced each day that Dakota is still alive.
Maybe finding and saving Dakota is the only way Adrienne can save herself.
Or maybe it’s too late for them both.

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I read Lauren Strasnick's Nothing Like You a while ago and had conflicting feelings about it: I really liked the idea, but I couldn't connect to the writing style. Still, I gave Then You Were Gone a try because the story sounded so good. However, my feelings about Then You Were Gone were pretty much the same as what I thought about Nothing Like You: I loved the plot and the idea, but the writing style didn't work for me and kept me from really connecting with the characters.

I loved the mystery in Then You Were Gone; I loved trying to figure out what could have happened to Dakota and how it relates to Adrienne. And even though I'm usually disappointed by the endings to mysteries like these - too often, they're too unrealistically-happy for me - I loved the resolution to this one: it's the perfect balance of realistic and hopeful, and it works really well for the story.

Like I said, though, the writing kept me from enjoying anything deeper than the mystery plot. Lauren Strasnick's writing is very sparse and relies heavily on dialogue. It feels wrong to criticize that because there are many novels in which I have enjoyed a more sparse writing style because it leaves more of the interpretation up to the reader, but with a story that relies so much on emotions, I wanted the writing to be a lot more fleshed-out. I understand why the author would choose to write so sparsely about Adrienne's emotions - to show her disconnect with herself and whatnot - but it still kept me from really connecting with the story.

The characters had a lot of potential. I really enjoyed the dynamics of Adrienne's and Dakota's past friendship and now non-relationship; both of them are fascinating characters. But 'fascinating' is pretty much where my appreciation of the characters stops; because the sparse writing style made me feel so distant from the story, I never gained enough insight into the characters or their motivations to really get to know them.

Really, that's all there is to it: Lauren Strasnick's writing just isn't my cup of tea. I really liked the idea and the plot, but the writing kept me from ever really connecting with the characters and the emotional side of the story. If you like sparse writing, you should give this one a try, but I think I might be giving up on Lauren Strasnick's writing.

Review: Nothing Like You by Lauren Strasnick

Title: Nothing Like You
Author: Lauren Strasnick
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Pages: 224
Release date: October 20th 2009
Genre: Contemporary YA
Source: Bought
Find out more: Amazon ; Goodreads

Goodreads description:

When Holly loses her virginity to Paul, a guy she barely knows, she assumes their encounter is a one-night stand. After all, Paul is too popular to even be speaking to Holly...and he happens to have a long-term girlfriend, Saskia. But ever since Holly's mom died six months ago, Holly has been numb to the world, and she's getting desperate to feel something, anything—so when Paul keeps pursuing her, Holly relents. Paul's kisses are a welcome diversion...and it's nice to feel like the kind of girl that a guy like Paul would choose.
But things aren't so simple with Saskia around. Paul's real girlfriend is willowy and perfect... and nothing like Holly. To make matters worse, she and Holly are becoming friends. Suddenly the consequences of Holly's choices are all too real, and Holly stands to lose more than she ever realized she had.

First sentence:

We were parked at Point Dune, Paul and I, the two of us tangled together, half dressed, half not.

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

First off, I love this cover - it´s so beautiful! I could stare at it for ages. However, the actual book is only okay, in my opinion. I like the main idea, but some storylines just didn´t work for me.

The writing is, well, okay. At times it´s good and insightful, but at others it´s too choppy, in my opinion. Lots of chapters started with sentences like "School." "Lunchtime." or "Mid-November." - maybe it´s not that big of a deal, but to me that made it seem too much like the scene in theather or of a movie and not enough like a novel. Some parts I liked, but others I thought should have been more fleshed-out, like Holly´s feelings, and it just went back and forth between liking the writing and disliking it.

The entire book was like that for me - some storylines I really enjoyed reading about while others I just couldn´t get into. I´ll start with the positive. One thing I loved is the friendship between Holly and Nils. I loved reading about their shared history, and their bickering and the way they treat each other is so cute. I wanted to shake them to make them see they´re perfect for one another.

The characters are great and fully-developed. Holly is easy to relate to (with one exception - I´ll get to that later), and I felt her grief. Nils is a great and dynamic character. Saskia is interesting, too, and she has her own problems. Holly´s dad´s situation is heartbreaking but realistic. All characters are multi-dimensional and complex... except for Paul.

Holly and Paul´s relationship is one of the storylines I couldn´t get into. I know I´m supposed to feel Holly´s conflict of wanting to be with him but knowing it´s wrong, but honestly, I just thought Paul was an ass - I couldn´t get why Holly put up with him. I grew more and more frustrated with him as a character and Holly´s not standing up to him as the book progressed.

I´m split on what to make of Holly´s friendship with Saskia. The way it develops doesn´t seem realistic to me - Saskia´s supposed to be popular and Holly has exactly one friend, but Saskia just comes up to her and suddenly wants them to be friends. Later on, though,  I loved the scenes they had together, and thought their friendship was sweet.

I loved reading about Holly´s family situation and her dad. The way he interacts with Holly is both sweet and heartbreaking, and that aspect really let me feel both of their grief for Holly´s mother. I also loved how Holly found out more about her mother thorugh her drama teacher and that whole storyline.

I didn´t get the ending - it almost seemed non-existent to me. I thought it was just the end of a chapter and turned the page, but then saw the book was over. I re-read the ending, but still - nothing really happens. I can´t explain it - of course I don´t want a solution to all of Holly´s problems, but it just felt like something was missing at the end.

I had some problems with a few of the storylines, but overall Nothing Like You is still a sweet and worthwhile read. I don´t know whether or not to recommed this book - there are some things I really liked and others I couldn´t get into at all. Maybe that´s just me, though - I think a lot of my dislike for some of the storylines came from me not being able to sympathize with Paul or his relationship with Holly, so that might be different for you.