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You Were Here

door Gian Sardar

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"Readers of Kate Atkinson will delight in this suspenseful and romantic debut novel about a woman haunted by nightmares and her grandmother's role in a doomed love triangle almost seventy years before. Death, accidental and early, has always been Abby Walters's preoccupation. Now thirty-three and eager to settle down with her commitment-shy boyfriend, a recurring dream from her past returns: a paralyzing nightmare of being buried alive, the taste of dirt in her mouth cloying and real. But this time the dream reveals a name from her family's past. Looking for answers, Abby returns home to small-town Minnesota for the first time in fourteen years, where she reconnects with her high school crush, now a police detective on the trail of a violent criminal. When Abby tries on her grandmother's mesmerizing diamond ring, a ring she always dreamed would be hers, she discovers a cryptic note long hidden beneath the box's velvet lining. What secret was her grandmother hiding? And could this be the key to what's haunting Abby? As she begins to uncover the traces of a love triangle gone shockingly wrong nearly seventy years before, we, too, see that the layers of our lives may echo a past we've never known"--… (meer)
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1-5 van 10 worden getoond (volgende | toon alle)
I received an ARC from Penguin First to Read to review.

You Were Here follows 4 different characters, 2 in the present day, 2 in the early 1900's who are distantly linked to them. First we have Abby who sells estate jewelry living in Los Angeles with her screenwriter boyfriend Robert. Abby has been with Robert for 4 years and they are waiting for his big break for their life to begin-marriage, house, kids. Abby is anxious battling her ticking biological clock, thinking about all her friends who are ahead in that respect. Abby suffered from nightmares in high school that were so unsettling she refuses to return home. The nightmares return coincidentally in time with her 10 year high school reunion. She decides to go home and dig into her dreams that she believes may be related to her grandmother. Hoping to fix her terrors and maybe run into Aidan, a man she desperately yearned for in high school. The next character we follow, unsurprisingly is Aidan, Abby's high school crush. He is a detective on the police force in their home town he has recently returned to. He is buried in a serial rapist case that is plaguing their town. We alternate from present day with those two to Abbys grandmothers neighbor Claire. Claire's segments are split between her and her husbands mistress Eva. Claire is trying to find out about her cheating husband, William. They've only been married for two years. She can't imagine what she's done to deserve the betrayal but fears they are only together because their fathers approved of the match. Both from well-off families they have to keep up appearances that nothing is wrong. Eva, the other woman, comes from a small town that William frequents for his medical practice there. He spends a few days a week with her. They both seem completely taken with one another, head over heels. She hopes he will commit to her and leave behind his wife. William and Eva try to conceal their relationship but are found out by another doctor and exposed. After their high school reunion Aidan and Abby are sifting through her grandmother, Edith's letters. Edith's next door neighbors were Claire and William. They begin trying to figure out what happened all those years ago. A love triangle, a suicide, a disappearance and robbery. Abby must decide in a situation of her own, to hold out hope for practical, caring Robert or to jump at the chance for Aidan who has always been interested in her as well. She hopes to stop her dreams of a terror long past, while Aidan hopes to stop a current monster that is lurking just out of reach, before he strikes again. Gian Sardar has written a beautiful story. At first it was slightly hard to keep track of all the characters. They cut to the next person before you had a full grasp of who you were reading about. This got better through the book. The chapters segued with much better timing. The characters are still likable even with their evident flaws. I felt myself somehow rooting for both Eva and Claire to get their happily ever after when clearly that cannot happen. And again with Abby I wanted her to have this happy duality, in Makade with Aidan and in LA with Robert. So no matter how the story worked out I was both satisfied and disappointed by their outcomes. I very much enjoyed this. Thank you Penguin for the opportunity to read it. ( )
  staceyfronczak | Apr 3, 2018 |
When I first began reading this novel, it was dragging. I almost gave up on this book within the first 30 pages, but others' reviews on this book urged me to get past the 50-page mark because "that's where it really gets good". So I did. And they were right. In reality, this is a novel that consists of 3 stories:

1. the story of the detective and the serial rapist,

2. the story of Claire, Eva, and William (from the past)

3. the story of Abby, trying to figure out this mystery and trying to figure out her life

The author masterfully links these 3 stories to create a novel that flows beautifully and tells a complex tale about love, loss, life, and regrets. The characters were drawn up wonderfully and were each unique. The mysteries in this novel kept me on my toes and made me continue flipping pages well into the night. There were times when I felt a bit overwhelmed by the sheer number of plot lines being thrown at me; I would get engrossed in one mystery only to be jerked out of it and placed into another one. However, it all resolved itself in the end and made for a satisfying novel. There were certain things that the author mentions but never really comes back to, and this would be my one criticism of the novel; I like for everything to be wrapped up nicely and having open-ended elements tend to bother me a bit. But in light of this remarkable story, I will forgive this! If you are looking for a deep and complex mystery, I would highly recommend this novel! Just make sure to give it 50 pages! ( )
  veeshee | Jan 29, 2018 |
Boring, stupid, and way too long. I did not feel emotionally connected to any of the characters, and the author's style of writing was unnecessarily cryptic at times which I found annoying. Who names a character "Ketty" by the way? And her use of the word "conjure" was excessive - find another verb! Do not recommend. ( )
1 stem flourgirl49 | Jan 12, 2018 |
You Were Here by Gian Sardar is a recommended atmospheric debut novel of suspense that follows two storylines in two time periods.

Abby Walter's is currently living in LA with her commitment-phobic boyfriend Robert. She hasn't returned home to Makade, the small Minnesota town she grew up in, for fourteen years. She had horrible recurring nightmares about being buried alive, among other things, and the nightmares stopped after she left. Now she has decided to visit her hometown for the upcoming high school reunion, but especially to research her family's past because the name Claire Ballantine has surfaced in her dreams. She thinks looking into the past may end her nightmares, which have returned with the news of the reunion. Abby's high school crush, Aidan Mackenzie, has also returned to Makade after working on the police force in St. Paul. He's a detective on the trail of a violent serial rapist.

The story set in 1948 focuses on a love triangle, or, really, an affair between a dashing, handsome older man and a younger woman who wants to escape her small town existence. Small town Eva is a young woman in love with William Ballantine, a privileged wealthy man who is married to Claire. William and Eva conduct their affair in Rochester. She takes the bus from her small town and meets him at a house he owns there. The two are in love or obsessed with each other, but William doesn't want to hurt Claire.

The slow moving duel plot eventually connects the two timelines, showing how the decisions made and secrets held in the past have consequences that can influence or affect the future. The secrets actually aren't all that shocking once you get to them because they are easily deduced much earlier in the novel.

The novel is beautifully written, almost poetic at times. The quality of the writing helps You Were Here rise above the numerous plot elements that are less-than-perfect. This isn't really a romance novel, more of an exploration of dark secrets. The romantic connection between Abby and Aidan seemed forced to me and served no real purpose in the plot. The affair between Eva and William has been seen many times before - an older successful man starts an affair with an attractive, desperate-to-escape younger woman.

The characters, for the most part, are well-developed, even if they are also at times a bit too melodramatic. It seems that most of the women in this novel are holding tightly to the role of victim and looking for a man to save them, which became annoying. Abby was the most developed of the characters, while Eva was perhaps the most sympathetic.

To be honest, I had a difficult time finishing this novel and flirted with stopping just before the half-way point. It just didn't seem worth my time. In the end I had to give credit to Sardar for pulling it all together and for the quality of the writing, which is what kept me reading and resulted in my recommendation. But, for followers of my reviews, there were no real surprises in the plot for me, as it all has been done before in one way or another, and the big, shocking twists were all very predictable. Other reviews seem to be more glowing, so it could be I am just the odd miss for the title. Literary fiction readers will appreciate the writing.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of the Penguin Publishing Group.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2017/05/you-were-here.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2000962828 ( )
  SheTreadsSoftly | May 15, 2017 |
You Were Here tells multiple stories from many viewpoints across two timelines, one shortly after World War II and another in the present day. Then and now alternate. In the present, we have Abby who is a woman in waiting, waiting for her live-in lover Robert to finally sell a script so they can marry. She supposes she should be grateful he wants to prove himself before committing himself, but she wants to start her life, too. In Minnesota, there is Aidan, whose just moved back to his hometown, unnerved by a horrific case that continues to haunt him. Small town Minnesota should be a respite from the horrors of The Cities, except it seems no place is safe as there is a serial rapist terrorizing the community. So that is now.

Then, we had William, a successful, wealthy son of privilege who was married to the oh-so-appropriate Claire who loved him more than she should. He loved Eva, a small town girl who loves him back. This double life cannot continue indefinitely, but when they converge, things so terribly wrong. Claire seeks advice and guidance from her neighbor who just happens to have been Abby’s grandmother, connecting then and now through a ring Claire gave Edith before Claire mysteriously disappeared. Abby hopes learning what happened in the past will free her of her nightmares.

Complicating things, Aidan and Abby are falling in love. Will she let her commitment to Robert deter her from true love? Then and now, obligations and love collide.

I was intrigued and wanted to know what happened. You Were Here kept my interest from beginning to end. However, the women are all victims in one way or another, every last one of them except those we only see incidentally. Claire is haunted by nightmares, so is Abby. It’s not that they don’t have agency or pluck for that matter, but they are broken, either by mysterious dreams, fears and phobias, and abused, abandoned, or betrayed. Not one woman, except the stereotyped “popular” girl from high school, seems to have reached her majority unscathed.

The mystery in the here and now was fair. The one in the past is a horror. It seems so unnecessary. Eva was my favorite character in the entire book…and she did not deserve what happened to her. I know we are supposed to like Claire, too, but she felt so entitled to everything that I could not like her. As to the neighbor, Abby’s grandmother, working out her marital problems by “helping” the neighbor is the road to hell and paved with ill intentions.

I enjoy stories set in Minnesota and this had a good sense of place. The characters, though, we underdeveloped for the most part. Aidan is pretty much the stock romance hero, so we like him and are rooting for him, but he’s not that interesting. Abby is standard romance heroine of the old-fashioned sort, petite, seemingly fragile, haunted, full of fears and in need of rescuing. Eva would be like that, except she’s got pluck. I liked her a lot. That bit of pluck made her the most interesting person in the book. So yes, the book got me interested in their lives, but I felt like a story I have heard before, not in the details, not in any sense of taking from other works, but in the characters being so much part of the genre and not being quite enough of themselves.

You Were Here will be released on May 16th. I received an e-galley to preview from the publisher through NetGalley.

★★★
http://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2017/05/04/9780399575006/ ( )
  Tonstant.Weader | May 4, 2017 |
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"Readers of Kate Atkinson will delight in this suspenseful and romantic debut novel about a woman haunted by nightmares and her grandmother's role in a doomed love triangle almost seventy years before. Death, accidental and early, has always been Abby Walters's preoccupation. Now thirty-three and eager to settle down with her commitment-shy boyfriend, a recurring dream from her past returns: a paralyzing nightmare of being buried alive, the taste of dirt in her mouth cloying and real. But this time the dream reveals a name from her family's past. Looking for answers, Abby returns home to small-town Minnesota for the first time in fourteen years, where she reconnects with her high school crush, now a police detective on the trail of a violent criminal. When Abby tries on her grandmother's mesmerizing diamond ring, a ring she always dreamed would be hers, she discovers a cryptic note long hidden beneath the box's velvet lining. What secret was her grandmother hiding? And could this be the key to what's haunting Abby? As she begins to uncover the traces of a love triangle gone shockingly wrong nearly seventy years before, we, too, see that the layers of our lives may echo a past we've never known"--

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