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    History Is All You Left Me
    History Is All You Left Me
    History Is All You Left Me
    Audiobook9 hours

    History Is All You Left Me

    Written by Adam Silvera

    Narrated by Tom Picasso

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF MORE HAPPY THAN NOTCOMES AN EXPLOSIVE EXAMINATION OF GRIEF, MENTAL ILLNESS, AND THE DEVASTATING CONSEQUENCES OF REFUSING TO LET GO OF THE PAST.

    When Griffin’s first love and ex-boyfriend, Theo, dies in a drowning accident, his universe implodes. Even though Theo had moved to California for college and started seeing Jackson, Griffin never doubted Theo would come back to him when the time was right. But now, the future he’s been imagining for himself has gone far off course.

    To make things worse, the only person who truly understands his heartache is Jackson. But no matter how much they open up to each other, Griffin’s downward spiral continues. He’s losing himself in his obsessive compulsions and destructive choices, and the secrets he’s been keeping are tearing him apart.

    If Griffin is ever to rebuild his future, he must first confront his history, every last heartbreaking piece in the puzzle of his life.

    “Adam Silvera is a master at capturing the infinite small heartbreaks of love and loss and grief. History Is All You Left Me is a beautiful meditation on what it means to survive devastating loss. This book will make you cry, think, and then cry some more.”—Nicola Yoon, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Everything, Everything
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJan 17, 2017
    ISBN9781501938986
    History Is All You Left Me
    Author

    Adam Silvera

    Adam Silvera is the #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of They Both Die at the End, The First to Die at the End, More Happy Than Not, History Is All You Left Me, the Infinity Cycle, and—with Becky Albertalli—What If It’s Us and Here’s to Us. He worked in the publishing industry as a children’s bookseller, community manager at a content development company, and book reviewer of children’s and young adult novels. He was born and raised in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. He is tall for no reason. Visit him online at adamsilvera.com.

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    Reviews for History Is All You Left Me

    4/5

    594 ratings24 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Emotional roller coaster. Twisted, heartbreaking, uplifting, beautiful. Story of love, holding on, loyalty, and moving on.
    • 3/5
      Estuvo bien, pero creo que entre con altas expectativas y no se cumplieron.
    • 5/5
      This was so fucking brilliant. I really cried and teared up so many times. But it was also so fucking beautiful. Adam Silver is a genius!
    • 5/5
      Wow! How am I crying 2 minutes in lmaoooo. Jesus.
    • 5/5
      The audio book is so calming and well recorded. And as for the book itself, it is a rollercoaster that will make a trainwreck out of you. But in such a lovely way
    • 4/5
      I listened to the audiobook narrated by Tom Picasso. I enjoyed the experience, even though I think he could've made the characters' voices more distinct from one another. That's my only complaint - otherwise, his voice was gripping, and he maintained a good reading pace.

      Adam Silvera was, however, the real star of the show. I've only read 'They Both Die At The End' and even though it didn't surprise me, I wanted to get to know his writing better. I'm glad it worked out so well. This book is so important, for so many reasons! First of all, because it tackles teenage death. For someone who suffers from anxiety, this was not an easy read. I hate to think about death, the main focus of this book. But I recognize it is an important topic. Not only because it gives you other perspectives on death (and everything that happens afterwards), but also because it deals with grief and how the living cope with it.
      Accidental teenage death is not a topic I read a lot about. Most teenagers that die in the literary world are victims of suicide, disease or murder. I 'appreciated' the remainder that young people die from ordinary causes as well. Young people have accidents too. And those who stay alive are left in shock, wondering what could've been but will never become.
      What I loved most about this book was how flawed every single one of the characters was. Silvera begins his narrative trying to make you feel compassion for our main character, but halfway through you won't stand him. Hell, you'll eventually hate everyone. Silvera shows us how there's a side to every story. You'll have to stop taking sides because everyone was in the wrong, at some point. This is a book about real lives, real mistakes and probable outcomes. Unlike 'Alice in Wonderland', Silvera tells a narrative that could be anyone's story.
      My only complaint may be how predictable some things were, even though I truly appreciated the Wade bomb. Nonetheless, Silvera's writing was flawless, engaging and very pure. Sometimes it felt like he was drawing from his personal experience. He could put things so naturally and simply, it felt like I was reading his diary.
    • 4/5
      Great book. A little predictable in places. Really dives deep into grief and loss.
    • 5/5
      Related a lot to the character in some way and felt some sort of a wake up call. Absolutely wonderful
    • 5/5
      The first book that made me love Silvera. It hurts at the same time it reminds you how being a human is.
    • 5/5
      My eyes heart from crying since chapter 22. this is so heartachingly beautiful.
    • 3/5
      The book is good, but the narrator makes similar voices for different characters and sometimes it was hard to tell who was speaking
    • 5/5
      I teach English in Argentina, so it’s hard to find a guy school group that I can read this book with: students don’t have as many classes as to acquire a level high enough as to do it. However, if I had the chance, I would teach with this book. I would teach so much. About acceptance and grief; about OCD and mental issues; about diversity. It really hit home for me, as I read it soon after someone lose had passed, and I think what Adam Silvera did is truly remarkable.


      It’s a must read for everyone.
    • 5/5
      ?????????????????????? Adam Silvera you cruel son of a bitch! WHY!
    • 5/5
      My heart is empty yet so full. Loved it so much!
    • 5/5
      I honestly loved this book. It gutpunches in all the right ways while also staying incredibly genuine. Incredibly real and often brutal in its honesty.
    • 5/5
      When Griffin's first love and ex-boyfriend, Theo, left for California for college, Griffin knew they would get back together some day. After all, Theo was the one who made Griffin's world okay, and he just knew Theo would return after he finished school and they would pick up where they left off. Even though Theo found a new boyfriend, Jackson, Griffin and Theo were meant to be. So when Griffin gets a call that Theo drowned in the ocean, his world shatters around him. How can he go on when Theo is gone? How could Theo leave him? How could Theo break the promises they made to each other? What is left in this world for Griffin? And while grieving isn't easy, Griffin must learn to make sense of a world that has suddenly changed. In the process, though, he just might realize that things haven't changed quite as much as he thinks...

      Wow. This is a book that made me want to cry on the first page. I don't know that I've ever encountered that before. I connect with Griffin so quickly as a reader, and I flipped page after page as he told his story, the story of Theo, the story of Jackson, the story of Wade... There is so much that Griffin needs to sort through that Theo's loss has left unresolved for him and new things that have unraveled in the wake of his best friend and ex-boyfriend's death. And he needs to sort through it all as a teenager trying to complete his senior year of high school. It's heavy. But it's also cathartic. This book will put you through the ringer, but it is soooo worth it. So worth it.
    • 2/5
      teen fiction (realistic fiction for mature teens; gay teen mourns ex-boyfriend, finds common ground with his ex's new boyfriend). I got to page 137--almost halfway through and liked it ok, but found Griffin to be awfully self-assured for his age--spending lots of time opining and expressing his thoughts matter-of-factly. He's funny and clever and I get that he's grieving and deserves time to be self-absorbed, but his voice eventually loses its refreshing quality and grows tiresome--it eventually got so I could never read more than 4-10 pages at a time. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, since there are many books I enjoy consuming slowly, a little at a time, but right now I just don't care to pick this book up again.

      Parental/content note: Griff and Theo (and I guess Jackson) are sexually active (responsibly using condoms), though the author doesn't go into detail for those parts.
    • 3/5
      3.5

      I didn't realize this book was YA when I picked it up -- I was just looking for something sad. I think the author captured the teen narrator's voice very well, but almost too well for my taste. It was frustrating to watch him make poor choices and circle through the same thoughts over and over. But I think that was part of the point. I did enjoy the way the author left clues for the reader to pick up on before the narrator did. I personally found it a little tedious to read but that's more about me and my preferences than the book itself, I think.
    • 4/5
      Adam Silvera just has a knack for dragging you wig through the mud with his writing and making you enjoy it. Or at least, he's dragged mine for the second time with History is All You Left Me. I was a fan of his previous book, More Happy Than Not, and can very happily report that he avoids the sophomore slump. He does so by giving us the story of Griffin, a teenager with extreme OCD, who is burying the love of his life Theo. At the funeral, he runs into Jackson, Theo's new boyfriend, and the two manage to be drawn together in their grief, trying to put the pieces of their lives back together. In another timeline, we see the development of Griffin and Theo's relationship, and it's eventual demise.

      Where I think the strengths of Adam's writing lie are in the characterizations of young people. There is not a character in this story that doesn't feel fully lived in and jumps off the page, even as he keeps the book solely in Griffin's POV. In order for fiction books to soar off the page, they need strong characters. What I loved so much about History is All You Left Me is that each character has tangible faults and qualms, which in turn make them stronger. Griffin is a doozy of a protagonist, and we experience him in two timelines, the pre-Theo death TL and the post-Theo death TL, meaning that as we get a deeper exploration of his OCD than we normally would. The amount of detail and heart Adam must have poured into this character is evident on the page as we root for Griffin to be able to move past having to have everything come in even numbers or standing on someone's side. But this book is all the better for allowing Griffin to not force our sympathy. Griffin is messy, he's a bit impulsive, and his grief has made him not the nicest person, and I appreciated being able to root for a character without him needing to be 100% perfect.

      I think the main problem I had with the book, is a similar complaint I've levied against many YA books, is that the ends of them, the third act if you will comes with a moment that drastically impacts the story. However, in coming near the end, these situations and moments are not often given the fullest time to breathe. I think Adam fares better than most within the genre confines, especially with More Happy Than Not. In this book though, I felt that given the non-linear nature of the book that we would be in for some major reveals, and lordt does this book really drag your emotions, but personally I felt like it was a lot for me to comprehend and unpack. This could very well be a personal issue, as I've pointed it out before, but in a book that's so measured in it's plotting, I felt a bit walloped over the head.

      History is All You Left Me arrives on Jan 17, 2017.
    • 5/5
      You know a book is going to be good when you're crying on the first page.

      This book is absolutely, stunningly beautiful. It is also incredibly sad. I really don't know what to say about it, because I loved everything. The book delivered everything I wanted it to and more. What I thought would happen, happened, but it happened very differently than I expected it to. The secrets that cloud the text are revealed at precisely the right moments, and once you know everything, it's very easy to piece all the pieces together.

      One of my favourite parts of this novel is the absence of Theo's voice (which is very much intentional and a brilliant move on the author's voice). Everything we see is through the lens of grief, and it clouds our own judgement, just as it clouds those grieving. I love how real everything feels, and how the characters come right off the page. I love how you, like Griffin and Jackson, are left with questions of "what if?" and what could have been. These questions have no answers, and cannot have answers. You can dream, you can wish, but as our protagonist learns, eventually, you have to go on.

      Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I can safely say that History Is All You Left Me is one of my favourite novels, and it's going to stay with me for a very long time.

    • 4/5
      This book was provided to me as a digital review copy by the publisher, via Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.

      When Griffin’s first love and ex-boyfriend, Theo, dies in a drowning accident, his universe implodes. Even though Theo had moved to California for college and started seeing Jackson, Griffin never doubted Theo would come back to him when the time was right. But now, the future he’s been imagining for himself has gone far off course.
      To make things worse, the only person who truly understands his heartache is Jackson. But no matter how much they open up to each other, Griffin’s downward spiral continues. He’s losing himself in his obsessive compulsions and destructive choices, and the secrets he’s been keeping are tearing him apart.
      If Griffin is ever to rebuild his future, he must first confront his history, every last heartbreaking piece in the puzzle of his life.

      Griffin is drowning in his grief in much the same way that his ex-boyfriend, Theo, drown in the ocean. He struggles to cope with disappointment, guilt, and anger, toward himself and toward others. History is All You Left Me is emotional in a manner that far overshadows the normal teen angst that is depicted in YA novels. The book explores aspects of death that many people don’t consider, such as dealing with the unanswered questions that a loved one leaves behind when they pass, and how to move on when there are so many loose ends that will never be tied up. Griffin chooses a surprisingly mature way to cope when he decides to bond with Jackson, but grief will make people do things that they would never normally consider, and that is the case here. In the end, Griffin has to learn how to cope without self-destructing, and how to help his friends cope without it turning into a competition with the winner being the one who hurts the most. The author does a good job of taking the characters through the stages of grieving. The writing is well done, though there are times that the jumps between time periods are confusing. I would recommend this book to older teenagers who are empathetic enough to appreciate the characters’ pain, but not so sympathetic that they’ll require grief counseling afterward.
    • 5/5
      Griffin and Jackson must both come to terms with the accidental death of Theo, Griffin’s former boyfriend and first love, Jackson’s present boyfriend, in this intensely insightful novel. There is more than enough heartbreak to go around, but somehow Griffin learns to navigate it and to even embrace his personal history despite a number of setbacks.
    • 4/5
      After his ex-boyfriend drowns, Griffin who suffers from OCD, gets together with his ex's current boyfriend as they try to work out their grief.
    • 2/5
      I loved Adam Silvera’s debut, More Happy Than Not, a one-of-a-kind blend of speculative fiction and coming-of-age tale, so I was extremely eager to get my hands on his sophomore effort – History is All You Left Me.Unfortunately, the flaws that I was willing to overlook in his first novel because of its uniqueness completely overshadow the storyline in this one. Basically it’s about two NYC high school sweethearts who are separated when one gets an early acceptance to a university in California and then drowns within his first year away…but not before finding a West Coast boyfriend. Griffin, the boy who’s been left behind in New York narrates the story by speaking directly to Theo, his dead ex-boyfriend. The narrative is probably the best and most unique thing about the book. As it moves back and forth between the present day (late 2016 – after Theo’s death) and “history,” (from 2014 up through Theo’s death), the reader sees how Theo and Griffin went from friends (part of a three man “squad” of high school nerds) to lovers to ex-lovers/friends to grief-stricken survivor and his deceased beloved. The problem isn’t the plot, per se, nor the structure, but with the characters and the strenuous way in which Silvera tries to manipulate the reader’s feelings. There’s way too much telling and not enough showing. The reader is told that Theo is a genius, but there’s nothing to support that on the page. We are told that Griffin’s OCD is nearly debilitating but, with the exception of some internal dialogue involving his obsession with even numbers, his need to be on everyone’s left side and the occasional nervous palm-scratching, it never feels like a serious issue. We are also told, over and over, that Griffin and Theo are meant to be together but there is little real evidence of that either. And, much like in his first novel, the boys' pursuits and conversations seem more juvenile than nerdy. I mean, seriously, how many male high school kids (gay, geeky or otherwise) put together jigsaw puzzles (and make up stories about the images) and use coloring books? Nothing about any of it rang true for me.On top of that, at nearly 300 pages the book seems padded and desperately in need of an editor to trim out much of the redundancy. The story seems to frequently meander, with the boys bickering and making up and falling out again. And rather than being simply an unreliable narrator, Griffin struck me as childish, inconsistent and difficult to care about. The author kept hammering home how sad it all was, but somehow it didn’t translate.I really wanted, and completely expected, to enjoy this book because More Happy Than Not was so refreshingly unexpected and unlike anything out there in the LGBT YA market. Perhaps the success of that one caused the publisher to rush this one to press before it was ready. Let’s hope this is just a hiccup in a promising career.