Dazzled by Books

I want to start off by saying that “You Were Here” is not a graphic novel. For some reason it has been listed as a graphic novel in several places and it definitely is not a graphic novel.

Jaycee has never figured out how to deal with the loss of her older brother Jake. Jake was a daredevil who tempted fate many times with his crazy over the top stunts. When someone dared Jake to do a back flip off some playground equipment, Jake attempted the stunt even though he had been drinking and ended up snapping his neck. Now Jaycee is graduating and she doesn’t know how to move on with her life.

Jaycee decides to recreate her brother’s stunts to try to find a sense of nearness to him. It seems that while she is trying to do this, she had made some odd friend connections that were originally her brother’s friends. It seems that Jaycee has some form of survivor’s guilt so all she truly wants her brother back but he is dead.

There really wasn’t a whole lot of depth to this book for me. I was disappointed to see that most of the book is about Jaycee trying to do these stunts and find a way to connect with her brother who is no longer living. I felt like Jaycee didn’t care how reckless she was being. I feel like she should have learned more from her brother’s death. This book was just not for me. I think teens may like it because of the fact that it is one of those filler reads rather than something you can really engross yourself into.