Review: Since You've Been Gone by Morgan Matson

The Premise: The story follows the protagonist Emily who is quite introverted and has a best friend named Sloane. Sloane is the one who kind of pulled Emily out of her introverted self and encouraged her to be more engaging in certain aspects. Sloane and Emily are a type of package deal and when summer approaches, they have all these amazing plans to hang out, but then one day Sloane disappears without a trace. No reason. No goodbye. Nothing. Emily is quite at a lost and misses Sloane incredibly and one day, she finds a letter written to her from Sloane and it is a list of things to do. Sloane has often written Emily letters with a bunch of things to do, and usually at the end, it says "Come and find me when you finish all of it." So Emily decides to do everything on the list, hoping that it is a way that will bring Sloane back. The list isn't just easy and simple things, they are things that make Emily go beyond her comfort zone and conquer her fears. For example some of the items include: Kiss a Strange, Go Skinny-Dipping, Break Something, Steal Something, Sleep under the stars.. etc etc. So the entire book is Emily trying to complete the tasks hoping to get Sloane back and during all of this, she encounters people that will have a big impact on her. It is a story of friendship, Emily and Sloane's friendship, Emily's new friends while trying to complete the list, Emily's relationship with her brother and her parents, and most of all, Emily learning to be comfortable with herself.

My overall thoughts and review: I LOVED this book so much. It was so intriguing right from the beginning and I literally devoured it in one sitting. It was so fascinating to read a book where the main focus was friendship and it actually stuck to that throughout the entire book. It was so lovely to read Emily's journey from the beginning, where she was honestly scared and lost without Sloane and seeing how much she shined towards the end of the novel. It was such a beautiful story about friendship, growing up, accepting one self, just simply a beautiful coming of age story. The writing is delightful and Matson just created such well-rounded characters that you just instantly fell in love with. I loved Emily, Frank, Collins, Dawn, Beckett and even Sloane. I could have easily read a hundred more pages about these characters and I did not want the story to end. I loved how the list items really pushed Emily to conquer her fears and I loved how it wasn't easy little tasks that could be completed all in one day. It took place over the entire summer and it was just so nice to read the lead up to the task, the accomplishment and of course, how Emily grew as a person from each task on the list. Music also had a big part in the novel which was enjoyable! I even added a few Porter recommended songs to my iPod ;) Overall, I really enjoyed this. It was a beautiful story about friendship, family and love and it is seriously one of the best contemporary YA books I have read in a while. I highly recommend it. (Also, the cover is stunning and the dust jacket on the inside is SO pretty!)

Rating of the book: 5/5 stars.