We Were Never Here By Jennifer Gilmore
In this exquisitely written, emotionally charged young adult debut, Jennifer Gilmore explores the bond that is formed between a hospitalized girl and the secretly troubled boy she falls in love with.
Did you know your entire life can change in an instant?
For sixteen-year-old Lizzie Stoller that moment is when she collapses, out of the blue. The next thing she knows she’s in a hospital with an illness she’s never heard of.
But that isn’t the only life-changing moment for Lizzie. The other is when Connor and his dog, Verlaine, walk into her hospital room. Lizzie has never connected with anyone the way she does with the handsome, teenage volunteer. However, the more time she spends with him, and the deeper in love she falls, the more she realizes that Connor has secrets and a deep pain of his own . . . and that while being with him has the power to make Lizzie forget about her illness, being with her might tear Connor apart. We Were Never Here
Summary ✓ PDF, DOC, TXT, eBook or Kindle ePUB free ¹ Jennifer Gilmore
I was able to read an ARC copy of this book from Around The WOrld ARC Tours and I have to say thank you thank you so much for introducing this book for tour. I love a good story that has it's regular ups and downs but this story took it to a new level that had me hooked right from the start. It took me a few days to read it because I had been sick but every second I could read I was reading it.
We get to meet Lizzie Stoller who is at summer camp when she gets sick. She is not sure what is wrong with her but she keeps getting a stomach ache and vomiting. So she goes to the camp infirmary to rest and wait for her mother to come and get her. As she is there she goes in and out of consciousness and ends up going to the top notch hospital for tests. Her mother is right by her side and she could not be any happier.
It is there at the hospital she meets Connor and his dog Verlaine. When she first meets him she sends him away because she is in pain and has not showered or washed her hair so she sends him out because in her words she is disgusting. But soon the two have a friendship and are doing things together. Then something happens to Connor and Lizzie doesn't know what happened to him and when she finds out she is both mad and sad because she isn't sure she knows who this boy is.
Once Connor had it all and one night changed that for him and since then he has been living a lie. Once his truth comes out he has no choice but to tell Lizzie the truth and hope for the best. Will Lizzie forgive Connor or will she turn her back on him? 320 I'm recommending this book to everyone! 320 Jennifer Gilmore's writing is so sharp, clear and empathetic. Don't read the summary, just read the book! I couldn't put it down, wept several times, and was truly captivated by her suspenseful storytelling and incredible wit. There's nothing predictable about these characters or their challenges. Suffering collides with excellent humor and genuine romance. We Were Never Here creates an immersive world that I still think about often. What a spectacular book. 320 So I gave this book about 100 pages before I decided to put it down. The main character was pretty annoying. I didn't like how she claimed to suddenly be in love with the guy who came to her room maybe three times? The characters were flat, the plot line was flat and I felt no connection to the story whatsoever.
The summary of the book seemed interesting and that's why I wanted to read it, but the book isn't what you expect. It's also definitely middle grade reading level, way way under what I'm used to be reading yet it's listed under YA.
Maybe one day I'll give it another try, but I feel like this book was too....easy and boring for me. 320 My Thoughts: I really did like this one! But I just never really connected much to Lizzie or Connor.
We are introduced to Lizzie. She’s just a normal girl with a normal family. She lives with her mom and dad and older sister. She’s pretty ordinary. One day at camp she starts to feel sick. It only gets worse and she’s admitted to the hospital. She gets put in the Colon Cancer ward basically. This scared me a little bit as I’m dealing with my own problems right now with having anemia and being tested for stomach related issues. I thought oh crap, is this book going to scare the crap out of me?
Lizzie ends up getting diagnosed with a colon disorder and her life changes completely. She has so much to face and so many new challenges. Than in comes a boy named Connor when Lizzie sure isn’t at her best.
I liked Connor but he had so many issues of his own. And that’s the point. We learn more about him as the story progresses. I liked him. I especially liked his cute dog.
Connor is just what Lizzie needed rather they both knew it or not. She needed someone she could lean on even if he wasn’t always around. He brightened her days while in the hospital.
I liked this one, I really did but it just wasn’t the happy go lucky book I needed right than. It was sad, it was raw, it was emotional. I also liked seeing that Lizzie and Connor weren’t perfect. Their lives weren’t perfect and they had so many obstacles to overcome.
Overall: I really did enjoy this one but it wasn’t one of my favorites of the year. I did race right through it and finished it pretty quickly. I’d still recommend this one though. I’d say it’s probably more of a 3.5 cupcake rating than a 3. I read a lot of contemps and it’s hard to please me on those!
Cover: Love it! I love the colors and the way they are holding hands. Cute!
What I’d Give It: 3/5 Cupcakes
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Taken From Princess Bookie
www.princessbookie.com
320
Did you know your entire life can change in an instant?
For sixteen-year-old Lizzie Stoller that moment is when she collapses, out of the blue. The next thing she knows she’s in a hospital with an illness she’s never heard of.
But that isn’t the only life-changing moment for Lizzie. The other is when Connor and his dog, Verlaine, walk into her hospital room. Lizzie has never connected with anyone the way she does with the handsome, teenage volunteer. However, the more time she spends with him, and the deeper in love she falls, the more she realizes that Connor has secrets and a deep pain of his own . . . and that while being with him has the power to make Lizzie forget about her illness, being with her might tear Connor apart.
We Were Never Here or as I like to call it A Fault In Our Stars Without All The Good Parts. It's histrionic and over the top and yet somehow not enough of a story to be believable. Basically, take any teen-with-a-health-issue story, remove the poignancy, and replace it with DARK SECRETS and HOT BOYS WITH CUTE PUPPIES. This book just felt dated, it missed the FIOS trend and we've all moved on.
The main character, Lizzie Stoller, is a self-absorbed twit (if you don't like teens, that may be how you describe them, but I assure you that they are also funny, smart, incisive, and giving). One day, she collapses at camp with severe abdominal pain, vomiting--basically everything humiliating about having your digestive system turn on you like Benedict Arnold. Bizarrely, they keep her in the camp infirmary for a few days before, you know, calling a doctor or her family or someone trained to deal with serious medical issues. Bad camp. Bad.
It turns out that she has ulcerative colitis, and she's in the hospital refusing to walk or talk or eat and generally being excessively dramatic. Even when a cute guy and his cute dog show up in her room, she doesn't want to talk to them, even though he's sooooo dreamy and the doggie is soooooo cute. Obviously, Lizzie and Connor, the hot guy, end up having A Connection and then A Relationship, but alas! Lizzie has to have a partial colostomy, which makes her think that she can never be loved agaiiiiiin. But Connor and Verlaine, the dog, still love her, but then she finds out a Horrible Secret about Connor and doesn't know if she can trust him anymore. After that, Lizzie finds purpose and a new best friend and hopes that she will see Connor, her love, sometime in the future, because they looooove each other. The end. Literally I cant make myself care about this book.
320 Have you ever read a book where all you really want is for the heroine to run as far away from the love interest as she can possibly get?
This is that book.
320 DNF at 16%
She’s smiling. Her hair doesn’t smile with her, and she scratches under it.
Thelma has a wig.
She’s going to tell me I’m dying, I think. I will never see my friends again. I will never cuddle with Mabel and fall asleep to her snoring. I will never go to Spain or any Spanish-speaking country, not Mexico or Venezuela or Costa Rica or Puerto Rico, which I know is not a country.
WAIT, WHATTTTT???
WHATTTTTT????
Good luck telling THAT to the Puerto Ricans, you ignorant twat.
I know I'm being narrow-minded. DNF at 16%? Who the hell does that? Well, me obviously. I mean, if I have to put up with this clueless, oblivious, ignorant, unlikable, extremely annoying teenager for another 84% I think I'd be, you know, dead. A bit melodramatic, I know. But that's the card our main character was going for, so don't blame me.
So I settle back, and then the worst thing happens. I can’t set the iPad on my belly. I can’t sit up to watch it. And for the brief moment that I do this anyway, looking at the screen makes me sick to my stomach.
WOW CANT'T SET THE iPAD ON YOUR TUMMY IS YOUR IDEA OF 'WORST THING'???? Are you fucking kidding me right now???? HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF FAMINE OR POVERTY OR SYRIAN ASYLUM SEEKERS YOU DUMBASS ENTITLED PRINCESS?
Shit. I'm so pissed off right now. Why did I even think reviewing/ recapping this book was a good idea anyway.
So yeah Lizzie Stoller was sick (with something I really don't care to find out anymore). She was a boring, brooding, melodramatic teen who was taking everything for granted. Being a privileged 1st world teen as she was, all she could think about on her death bed was jealousy over her friend's hook-ups and whether she'd ever be pretty enough to draw attention from just about any random boys on the planet.
Speaking of random boys, she became insta-obsessed over a guy with his therapy dog right from the first encounter. And I skimmed through and found out she claimed she was in love with him after meeting the guy for like 3 times. Hormones could be so cruel sometimes.
How lucky am I, I think, that this guy works here, now? The crazy unlucky part comes back quickly, though, because here he is standing up and I am lying here, a mess, a mess who fell on her face in front of him.
Who is Connor? He is incredibly cute, but I can see he also bites his nails really, really short. Like he hardly has any nails. That is never a good quality in a boy, I think,
I don't think you gonna miss anything much by not reading this book. I mean, if you're into sneak-peaking into the head of an evidently self-absorb girl who was all brooding by day and hungrying for attention from boys by night, then be my guest. She's one-dimensional, boring and vain. I'm proud to say I do not care about her. Worst main character I've come across in a while.
Find out more at:
https://thebleedingeyes.wordpress.com 320 When I first saw this book on Goodreads, I really thought that it would be one of those books where my opinions would differ with everyone else's. So despite seeing the not-so-high ratings in Goodreads, I still requested this. However, I have to say that the others were right about this book from the start.
The premise of this book just seemed so interesting to me when I first read the synopsis. According to the synopsis, it's about a romance between a hospitalized girl and a troubled boy, which just sounded so interesting! I also saw a review that mentioned that this has mental illness in it, so of course I was interested. However, this book is more about pining away for someone who is not there rather than a romance that would make you feel the feels.
Let me just say this - I hated Connor's character. He's a chronic liar who thinks that the world revolves around him. I get that he's depressed but I don't think that's an excuse for being pathetic. Speaking of depression, I hate the way it was portrayed in this book. I know that it's not the center of the story, but seriously. Connor was not given the help that he needed, which just resulted to him being worse. He was continuously sent away, but not to get help. Ugh!
Also, there was no chemistry whatsoever between Connor and Lizzie. I didn't feel anything, which might also be caused by how few the time they spent with each other were. Which brings me to the point of insta-love because they've only seen each other a few times and they were already in love with each other. Nope, I just couldn't stand it.
Another thing I didn't like was how the characters interacted with each other. The conversations between Stella B. and Lizzie felt so awkward and chopped, and I just really didn't like it. It was also the case sometimes with Connor. Sometimes there would be one-word replies, which were just weird and awkward in my opinion.
Overall, I really didn't enjoy this book. In fact, it took me almost a week just to finish reading this because there was just nothing to hold me onto the book. In this case, I should have listened to what everyone else was saying. 320 (Source: I received a digital copy of this book for free on a read-to-review basis. Thanks to HarperCollins and Edelweiss.)
“Am I going to die?”
This was an okay story, but it wasn’t quite what I was expecting.
Lizzie was put in a difficult position in this book, being stuck in hospital and having no idea what was wrong with her was really hard, and I totally got why she worried that she was going to die.
The storyline in this wasn’t quite what I expected as it was more about Connor and Lizzie being apart than being together, and I was looking for romance really. I will admit that I didn’t guess the little twist that we got, so that was a bit of a surprise, but I just wanted Connor and Lizzie to actually get some time together rather than missing each other and writing letters.
The ending to this was quite bittersweet, and not really the happily ever after I was hoping for.
6 out of 10 320
