I will always gravitate towards YA novels in which the main character(s) travel outside of the US. While I appreciated Whitney's debut novel, The Mockingbirds, for its thought-provoking portrayal of date rape, WHEN YOU WERE HERE felt more emotionally distant and forgettable. The weight of all of Danny's miseries combined is a lot to take, which makes the neat ending a bit more unbelievable.

First, you should know that this book is sad. No, seriously. I'm not sure how Danny wasn't suicidal somewhere in this book. It's like you think things can't get worse for him, but always inevitably do.

I really enjoyed this book. It's not at all what I thought it would be, but I found myself totally engrossed in the story. I felt so sorry for Danny, especially after he arrived in Tokyo and started discovering things about his family and friends that his mother never told him before she died. You watch his entire world unravel, and you can't imagine how Daisy Whitney could wrap up the book in any sort of positive way, but it has a bittersweet ending that was really poignant, I thought.

This is a story about grief and discovering how to keep on living in the aftermath of sadness. What I liked was that Daisy Whitney doesn't provide any sweeping answers or solutions to Danny's hurting. She gives him little slivers of hope, which is all he can hold onto - which is so true to life it was sometimes hard to read.

And because we see everything through Danny's eyes, I found myself really disliking some of the characters, specifically his sister Laini. I just couldn't feel sorry for her, I couldn't sympathize with her at all. She was selfish and stuck-up, and I'm not sure I could ever truly forgive her if she were my sister. The resolution between her and Danny was one of my favorite parts of When You Were Here. It just seemed so much more real than if everything had been rosy and perfect with them in the end.

I also had a hard time liking Holland, especially after the big plot twist. I thought she really treated Danny poorly, and I din't quite understand why he was so in love with her. Christina mentioned this, and I think it's so right: Holland is the "manicpixiedreamgirl" that so often appears in John Green books - and that I don't actually like. But if you like those kinds of characters, I think you'll enjoy Holland's character.

My favorite character in the book was definitely Kana. She's so fun and cool, and I'd love to have someone like her be my friend. :) And while I liked that Danny doesn't have feelings for her, I couldn't help wishing that he would transfer his affections to her, rather than Holland.

While I liked Danny and Kana, though, my favorite part of the book was the setting. I love when YA books are set in foreign countries (no news here, for people who know me), and Asian ones are even better! I've read a few YA books set in Japan (Ink by Amanda Sun and Tokyo Heist by Diana Renn, for example), and I think this one can be added to the ranks of books with great setting details and descriptions. She really captures the metropolitan feel of Tokyo, and I love how much she talked about the food. Danny's love for Tokyo really shines through, and it makes you love it too. (But on the flip side, I really loved when Kana talked about Japan and what she didn't like about it - that gave a great balance, I thought.)

Overall, this book was brutal and painful - but I really enjoyed it. Actually, it reminds me of the book I'm editing right now to send to my agent, in terms of tone and some of the themes. I think that's one of the reasons that it really hit home with me, and I so connected to the story.

I would recommend this book to people who enjoy more angsty contemporaries and books like The Fault In Our Stars, which pride itself in ripping your heart out and feeding it to you on a platter, all while you ask for more.

I really, really wanted to like this book. Really. The cover is gorgeous and the summary sounds right up my alley, but I just could not get into it. The main reason was the style in which it’s told. I think the author was going for a unique writing style but it felt really forced for me. There was also a lot of telling not showing. The characters felt a little silly. The dialogue between Danny and Holland made me roll my eyes repeatedly

I wanted to love this book so much. I began this book almost three weeks ago and I just finished it yesterday. It took me forever to like the book enough to finish and even though the middle of the book got considerably better, I’m not the biggest fan of When You Were Here. I loved Daisy Whitney’s previous two books but I wasn’t able to care for the characters in this book as much as I had hoped to.

Danny is a very hard character to care for. In the beginning, he's angry and sad and confused and self centered. It's understandable of course. He lost his dad to a freak accident, his adopted sister left the family and now his mom is gone. Plus, he's only 18 and he's had to deal with a lot. I think for me, the thing was that I've never been in Danny's situation. People say that everyone grieves differently and while someone (like me) can accept that, connecting to the character can be hard. Surprisingly, it wasn't until Danny came to Tokyo that I began to truly care for him. He began to let go of his anger and resentment and opened up to new possibilities.

There were two other characters I cared about When You Were Here: Danny's mom and Kana, Danny's friend in Tokyo. Danny's mom is dead by the time this book begins but all of the times she's mentioned, I loved her. A big aspect of this book [is when Danny learns that his mother lived as happy as she did before she died because she understood when it was her time to live and her time to die. it wasn't as dramatic as I thought it would be and I appreciated that.] Kana's introduction was a breath of fresh air. Kana is talkative and outgoing, something Danny isn't at the moment. Their relationship was platonic and I LOVED that. Kana was someone Danny didn't know so it was much easier for him to open up to her.

MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW:
PLEASE SEE THE LINK FOR THE SPOILER
SPOILERS ARE OVER

My only other aspect I didn't like was the fact that by the end of the book, every issue had been resolved. Danny seemed to be over his mom's death, he and Holland had figured things out, Kana and Holland got along, Sandy Koufax (his dog) was with him. The ending had a sense of hope but it wasn't the hope as in "things will get better." It was the kind of hope where everything ended perfectly and would hopefully continue to be so.

Overall, I enjoyed the middle aspect, majority of which is set in Tokyo, much more than everything else. I loved Kana and Danny's mom and while it took me a while, I warmed up to Danny. I appreciated the mature feel to this book and it's a testament to Daisy Whitney's growth as a writer! While I found a lot of the plot to be predictable and aspects I felt to be unnecessary, When You Were Here was one of the best books about grief I've read! I can't wait to read what else she haas to offer!