Since You've Been Gone by Morgan Matson Published by Simon and Schuster on 5/6/15
Genres: Love & Romance, Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance, Young Adult
Pages: 464
Source: BEA
My content rating: YA (Nothing more than kissing shown, Some infrequent foul language)
My rating:
The Pre-Sloane Emily didn't go to parties, she barely talked to guys, she didn't do anything crazy. Enter Sloane, social tornado and the best kind of best friend—the one who yanks you out of your shell.
But right before what should have been an epic summer, Sloane just… disappears. No note. No calls. No texts. No Sloane. There’s just a random to-do list. On it, thirteen Sloane-selected-definitely-bizarre-tasks that Emily would never try… unless they could lead back to her best friend.
Apple Picking at Night? Okay, easy enough.
Dance until Dawn? Sure. Why not?
Kiss a Stranger? Wait… what?
Getting through Sloane’s list would mean a lot of firsts. But Emily has this whole unexpected summer ahead of her, and the help of Frank Porter (totally unexpected) to check things off. Who knows what she’ll find?
Go Skinny Dipping? Um…
Since You’ve Been Gone is a story about friendship and learning to be your own person and take risks in life. It follows Emily, who doesn’t know who she is without her best friend Sloane. She has spent the last two years living in her friend’s shadow (mostly by choice), so when Sloane disappears and leaves Emily with only a strange list of things she has to accomplish, Emily feels like she has to tackle the list – she imagines that it will somehow lead her to Sloane.
But in the process of trying to find Sloane, Emily instead finds herself (and makes some new friends) – and learns who she could be if she’d give herself the chance.
What I loved:
- Emily’s development. Emily starts out as a girl who’s sort of painfully shy. She is content to latch onto to Sloane and live vicariously through her – she feels like she can be herself when Sloane is there to take the lead. But when Sloane disappears, Emily is completely thrown – she doesn’t know how to interact with people without Sloane there to run interference, and she doesn’t really want to. When Emily ends up forging new friendships, it’s sort of by accident at first. She falls into these relationships only because she isn’t sure how to avoid them. But, by the end of the book, Emily realizes that she has a lot to offer the world – even without Sloane by her side. She comes out of her shell and takes charge of her own life in ways she never thought she could before.
- Friendships. The friendship between Sloane and Emily is shown through flashbacks and we learn how these two became so close. I could see a bit of myself in Emily. I was the type of person who formed a really close bond with one other person through middle school and high school (and even into college) – one person who I felt became part of me in some ways. And, usually, that person was someone who I saw as being vivacious and maybe being a little bit “more” than me. I could definitely relate to Emily’s feelings about her best friend and how lost she felt without her. But the other friendships in the book – with Dawn, Collins and Frank – are easily just as important to the book as her friendship with Sloane, if not more so. It’s these people who help Emily learn who she is without Sloane and make her see that she can move on. (And they have LOTS of fun together!)
- The list. The list of things that Emily has to accomplish are fun and sometimes bizarre. They push Emily to her limits (but there’s nothing really all that dangerous or bad about them). Accomplishing the items on the list sends Emily off on an adventure and bonds her to her new friends, and especially to Frank …
- Frank and Emily. The romance between Frank and Emily is sweet and perfect for a YA book (in my opinion). It’s slow to develop (which I love) – mostly because Frank has a girlfriend, so both Frank and Emily spend most of the summer denying that they have feelings for each other (there is a hint of cheating, which I’m not crazy about, but it wasn’t too bad).
The negatives:
- A bit long. The book sometimes felt a little longer than it needed to be. I don’t know if I would say that it exactly dragged, but there were parts where I was ready to move on.
- Conflict based on lack of communication. When things blow up for Frank and Emily, it could have all been easily solved if they’d had one conversation, and I didn’t quite understand why Frank didn’t just set Emily straight once it was obvious that she was misunderstanding something. This conflict based on an easily solvable communication issue is a pet peeve of mine. I also wish there had been a little more resolution to a conflict that comes up with Dawn, but that’s just me.
I thought that this was a great book about life and love, and especially about friendship. I give this book 4/5 stars.
***Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. No other compensation was given and all opinions are my own.***
About the Author
Morgan Matson grew up in New York City and Greenwich, Connecticut. She attended Occidental College in Los Angeles but halfway though a theater degree, she started working in the children’s department of Vroman’s Bookstore and fell in love with YA literature.
Following college graduation (and the proud bearer of an incredibly useful theater/English degree) she moved back East to attend the New School, where she received her M.F.A in Writing for Children.
Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour, inspired by Morgan’s three cross-country road trips, was published in May 2010. It was named an ALA Top Ten Best Book, a PW “Flying Start” book, and was shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Book Prize. It has since been published in five different languages and six different countries.
In the meantime, Morgan moved back to California, went back to school again and in 2011 received an M.F.A. in Screenwriting from the University of Southern California.
Her second book, Second Chance Summer, was published in May 2012 and draws largely on her experiences spending summers growing up in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.
Morgan currently lives in Los Angeles, though she loves to travel and does it whenever she can.
Author Links:
Related Posts
27 responses to “Review – Since You’ve Been Gone by Morgan Matson”
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
I thought the friendship and Emily’s growth was great, too. And come to think of it, the book was a bit longer than it should’ve been. However, I didn’t mind it as much. 🙂
Yeah – at 464 pages, this is long for a contemp. It didn’t bother me too much overall, but I did feel a drag occasionally.
I really hate when there is conflict in a book that could easily be resolved if everyone would just communicate. I have this one already and I do love books about friendship so I’ll still be giving this one a try.
Great review!
Yes, this is definitely a pet peeve of mine. I mean, he heard her say (the thing that she said that I won’t mention even though it’s not much of a spoiler) – and he knew she had misunderstood something. All he had to say was, “No, no, no – that’s not the situation,” and the conflict would have been instantly solved. Instead they stopped talking to each other for a couple of weeks.
But this is really a small portion of the overall book, so it certainly didn’t ruin my enjoyment.
This sounds like it would be a great escape read for when you just need a sweet in between kind of read.
Wonderful review!
Yes, and I would say that it has a lot more substance than a lot of other books that would meet that same description.
What a cute sounds book. Love the cover. Takes me back to my high school days!
Yes! It really was a pretty accurate portrayal of high school life.
This book seems amazing based on the reviews that I’ve read, but the thing is I didn’t like the synopsis, so I’ve been conflicted in whether to read this or not. Anyway, great review and I’m glad that you liked it! 🙂
Kim @ Divergent Gryffindor: BLOG || VLOG
Yeah, I have that problem sometimes too. Where a book just doesn’t capture your interest, even though everyone says it’s great!
Exactly! But at the same time I don’t want to miss it in case it’s really as great as everyone says it is. Ah, the dilemma
Great Review! I don’t usually like the look of the majority of the romance genre, but this intrigues me – may have to grab a copy! I completely agree with you when you say that some books should be shorter to take away that feeling of “dragging on”. It really annoys me when authors could cut down an extra 50 or so pages, to make for a more exciting and gripping plot that you can wholly engage with (If I get bored about 3/4 of the way through a book, I don’t connect with the ending as much!)
Just wondering whether you could possibly check out my recent review on The Shock of the Fall? As a new blogger I would love to get some input and feedback from someone of your calibre!
http://fromintrotoblurb.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/the-shock-of-fall-nathan-filer.html
Yes, I don’t mind length if I feel like every page was warranted, but sometimes this book just felt a little … well … long. I don’t want to be aware of how long a book is.
I just hopped over and checked out your blog. I’m always excited to “meet” new bloggers and to find new blogs to love!
I haven’t read this novel before, but I’ve heard of it – I’m pretty sure I have the book somewhere in my kindle. It sounds sweet though – let’s see 🙂 Great review!
Yes – you’ll have to look for it now! 🙂
This book sounds so fun! I love Matson’s Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour and have been wanting to read this one for a while now. I had forgotten about it a little bit, but now your review has put it on my radar again. I love that it is about friendships and lists.
This was my first Matson book, but now I definitely want to read more!
Great review!
Conflict based on lack of communication is also a pet peeve of mine! I can overlook it if the “misunderstanding” is small and doesn’t take up to much of the storyline, but when it’s the main conflict pushing the story forward I become frustrated.
This one sounds like a good anyway, I like stories about friendships 🙂
In this book, the actual conflict (at least the one I mention here) didn’t take long, so it wasn’t a huge problem – just a pet peeve!
I don’t read a lot of contemporary, but I love bucketlists and the like. It sounds like a lot of fun!
The list is one of the best things about the book!
I actually thought about reading this one as one of my contempt for the year since I only usually do two but I hmmm you saying it’s long makes me think tedious…so I’ll still keep it in mind.
I looked back at my GR comments about the book and saw that I commented that I really started to get into the book on page 130 – definitely later than I would have liked, but I still enjoyed the book overall.
Lovely review, girl! I still need to read this – I’m saving it for one of the first warm days of the year 🙂 – but I have a feeling the same things that bothered you will bother me. I’m not crazy about contemporaries that drag, and I hate that there is miscommunication between Frank and Emily. Hopefully I will still love it though!
The miscommunication is luckily a pretty small part of the book, so hopefully it won’t bother you too much!
I’m not really a fan of contemporaries but I’ve heard so many amazing things about this book and I think I’ve to give this one a try. Love the fact that there’s great character development in the book and the longer the book the better it is for me. Great review.
Ha! Funny that you like longer books – this one should make you happy! 🙂