Since You've Been Gone

"Since You've Been Gone" by Morgan Matson is a book I recently read that I really liked.



Summary

Emily's best friend Sloane disappears. At first, she's not surprised: it's not the first time Sloane and her parents leave without telling anyone. A week after, she starts worrying: she hasn't replied to any text or call. Emily finds a to-do list that Sloane has left for her full of tasks she wouldn't normally do, but thinks that completing the whole list will bring her best friend back. In this list we can find such things as dancing until the dawn, hugging a Jamie or going skinny-dipping. Emily will do anything to accomplish every task, no matter what it takes, even if (spoiler alert) she has to crash a wedding. But she won't do all of these on her own. She finds herself being friends with people she never thought she'd even talk to: Fank, Collins and Dawn. A very funny adventure with, of course, a love story in between.


The title

I think the title of this book is very important, not only because it might be the reason you buy it, but because in this case, the title (as I see it) goes deeper. "Since You've Been Gone" refers to everything that happens to Emily since Sloane leaves. But to me, that doesn't only mean the fact of crossing things off the list but everything she does a part from that. Emily doesn't only do everything her best friend asked her: she makes new friends, becomes braver, gets a job, and, after all, she has de best summer of her life. I think the author wants to tell us through the sorty that it's okay to be sorrounded by different people sometimes, which doesn't mean you can't have a good time. Matson encourages readers to not be afraid even when things go wrong, because in the end, everything will be okay.


Quotes

This book has some really interesting quotes that I really liked, so that's why I'd like to share them:

• "I was realizing that it was pretty terrible to be sitting in silence with someone who you always used to have something to say to" 
• "I don't think you have to do something so big to be brave. And it's the little things that are harder anyway" 
• "It just gets hard, being someone's second choice"
• "Real friends are the ones you can count on no matter what. The ones who go into the forest and bring you home. And real friends never have to tell you that they're your friends"

My favourite part

My favourite part of the book was the moment Emily met Frank and Collins.

Emily was ready to start crossing things off the list. She was about to go out to 55 Stanwich Avenue and ask for Mona, as the list said (which would lead to her having a job at an ice cream shop) when her brother Beckett asked if she could take him to Indoor X-treme, a place where he would climb ropes, play paintball and ride bikes. She drove him there and went in with him to make sure he was fine. She took her eyes off him for a moment and when she looked back, he had climbed a wall without a harness, which made Frank and Collins, two boys that worked there, climb the wall too to make sure he was okay. Emily knew them both but she had never talked to them. After apologising for her brother's behaviour, they left. That same night, the three casually met again at a party and, somehow, that was the beggining of a very nice friendship with them that would, with the time, become a love story with Frank.