There are two mistakes that I have made very recently.
The first is dying my hair blue, because now I look like a Smurf Skrillex.
The second is reading "I Have Lost My Way" by Gayle Forman.
Both are pretty bad, I don't know which is worse,
but lucky for you, you'll get to look both of them straight in the eye.
So, here we go.
"I Have Lost My Way" is a contemporary YA about three strangers
who are all dealing with different versions of loss and grief.
There's Freya, who's starting to lose her voice in the beginning of her singing career.
There's Nathaniel, who recently lost his father and ran away to New York.
And then there's Harun, who is dealing with his first breakup
and is struggling to come out to his very traditional Muslim family.
Harun is the worst character in this book, but we'll get to that in a second.
An accident brings them together, and they find some kind of solace in their new friendship.
I usually don't read contemporary YA, but I decided to give this book a chance,
and I regret everything! So I guess the lesson is to never try anything, ever.
The book starts off with Freya writing on her Twitter,
"I have lost my way."
And then there's Nathaniel, who's lost in the middle of New York City,
telling people, "I have lost my way."
And then there's Harun, who's not really doing anything, he's just sitting there and thinking,
"I have lost my way."
What a coincidence that three strangers, all at the same time, are thinking of the same obscure phrase
that literally nobody every uses.
What a subtle way to show that three people are fated to be together.
Is this fate? Or is this bad writing? I mean, who's to say?
They have said this phrase so many times in only the first chapter and just to prove it to you,
I will read all of the times.
We have the cover: "I Have Lost My Way."
We have the first chapter, also titled "I Have Lost My Way."
And then we have the first sentence: "I have lost my way."
Just to be generous, I think I'll only keep tally of whatever's in the written prose.
So let's begin.
Page one: "'I have lost my way.' Freya stares at the words she just typed into her phone.
"'I have lost my way.' Where did that come from?"
Page two: "'I have lost my way.' What would happen if she posted that?
"What would they say if they knew?"
They would probably think that you're a bot because you seem to be incapable
of having any original thought.
Page three: "All the while, the phrase 'I have lost my way' goes through Freya's head, like a song on repeat."
Page twelve: "'I have lost my way,' she thinks once more, and understands how true this is."
Still on page twelve: "'I have lost my way,' Harun thinks as the prayer begins."
*sigh*
Page thirteen:
"Abu clasps an arm on Harun's shoulder. 'Everything okay?' I have lost my way. He imagines telling Abu this."
Page fifteen: "It was a rash, last-minute thing to do, but it opened up the possibility of not getting on that plane,
"of running away for good, in which case he would be very late for dinner.
"Coward. I have lost my way."
Page seventeen:
"'I have lost my way,' he says as people stream by him. When no one responds, he isn't that surprised."
No one's responding because literally nobody ever says that.
Page nineteen: "'I have lost my way,' he says to the stream of pedestrians.
"'Can anyone tell me where the A Train is?'"
If I'm counting this right, they have said the phrase "I have lost my way"
basically nine times in the first twenty pages.
If this were a drinking game, I would literally be dead right now.
And I kind of wish I was.
If anybody ever actually comes up to me and tells me "I have lost my way,"
I will punch them in the face.
Let's talk about the rest of the book.
I'm not gonna talk about any spoilers because I literally don't care enough to talk about it.
Like I said before, Harun is the worst character in the entire story.
And I don't mean that as an attack on his character or identity, exactly,
it's more like he's the worst-written character in the book.
I could tell some random white lady was writing him because Harun is just defined by two things:
being Muslim and being gay. That's about it.
He doesn't have any hobbies or interests or goals or any personality at all.
The one motivation he has throughout the entire book is to get his boyfriend back.
I don't blame the boyfriend. I would break up with him too if I was dating a one-dimensional character.
So while everyone has lost their way, Harun has lost his gay.
I hate myself too.
His entire story is about how much it sucks to be a gay Muslim because his family is very traditional
and all they want is grandkids and all that other kind of crap.
And yes, people do deal with those issues, but it's not the only thing that they deal with.
People are not solely defined by their struggles.
That's not representation. That's a caricature.
Another thing I didn't like about the book is how contrived everything was.
The three characters meet because Freya happens to fall off a bridge and land on Nathaniel
right when Harun is watching the whole thing happen.
I don't have a problem with them meeting this way,
my problem is the fact that they still are hanging out with each other even though they don't know each other.
Beyond helping Nathaniel to the hospital, there is no reason why any of them would spend time with each other.
In Harun's case, he's only following Freya around because his ex is "obsessed" with Freya
even though she's not a well-known singer.
He's just tagging along because he thinks that getting her picture
or recording her singing and sending it to his ex will help them get back together.
Which is literally the stupidest, most flimsiest reason that I've ever heard to try to get your ex back.
All these characters just wanted to hang out with each other for no substantial reason other than for the plot to work.
I think "contrived" is the best word to describe the book because it was all very forced.
I understand what the author is trying to do by bringing these broken people and letting them heal together
through the power of friendship and instalove.
But their interactions are not substantial enough for them to form a deep friendship
or even, dare I say it, *gasp* fall in love.
They're talking, like, "Wow, I can open up my whole self to these strangers."
"Wow, I've never connected with anyone so deeply."
Dude, you need to chill out. It's not that deep.
And if it wasn't very obvious, the writing also fails in being very subtle or nuanced or just being good.
I felt like I was being beaten to death with messages over and over that the author really wanted me to know
and thought I was too stupid to understand.
I mean, it's pretty obvious from how many times the phrase "I have lost my way" was repeated,
but some other examples are just in the characterization throughout the book.
For example, Harun's monologue is constantly talking about how much of a coward he is
because of his ulterior motives following Freya around and how he's afraid of coming out to his family.
He spends the entire book agonizing and explaining how every contrived action he does is because he's a coward.
He does it arguably way more times than the phrase "I have lost my way" gets repeated, which is already a lot.
We get it, you have a flaw that's there for the sake of advancing the plot.
I don't need you to tell me you're a coward over and over because I already knew you were one-dimensional since chapter one.
Another example is when they take Nathaniel to the hospital.
He keeps repeatedly saying "it's all good."
"I'm all good. Don't worry about it. It's fine. I'm all good."
Then the book keeps talking about how he always says this phrase.
He's so used to pretending like he's okay when he's really not.
And the other characters are like, "Wow, I have a feeling that maybe, just maybe,
"he's not really okay."
No shit. If he's spending an entire day with you, of course he has a shitty life.
It was just annoying to me that the writing kept telling me over and over
what the characters were emotionally going through, instead of just showing that to me.
Most of the time, readers have half a brain to understand context clues
and if you have to repeat a phrase over and over, you're trying way too hard.
Overall, I give this book two stars.
I liked the idea of this story, but I definitely did not like the execution.
It definitely missed the target for me and I was super distracted by how awful the writing was.
If you actually want to read about an emotional journey of a young adult that goes through loss,
I would recommend "We Are Okay" by Nina LaCour.
This is actually the one contemporary YA book that I truly enjoyed.
The writing is very simplistic in that book, but it does a great job of showing and not telling,
unlike *clears throat.*
It does a great job of setting up the atmosphere and letting you interpret the story for yourself.
The main girl is very relatable, feels like a real person,
and doesn't repeat "we are okay" like ten fucking times in the beginning.
I feel like this is gonna be a short video but I really don't want to talk about this book any more.
I want to move on to talk about books I actually enjoy.
I really want to avoid making too many rant videos 'cause I don't want to be that bitch.
I try not to read books if I know I'm not gonna like them, I just really messed up with this one.
Thanks for watching, if you did. If you didn't, I don't blame you.
So, ye!
♪ lost my way | MAX ♪ @readwithcindy