History is All You Left Me // relationships that made me feel a little uneasy

Title: History is All You Left Me
Author: Adam Silvera
Genre: Contemporary
Warnings: death, grief, unhealthy relationships
Rating: 2 stars
Goodreads

I had very on-and-off feelings about History is All You Left Me, but ultimately the book made me a little uneasy.

Jumping from past to present events was really effective here given how grief often doesn't work chronologically, but I think a bit of it was done just for dramatic effect. The loss of a loved one is all-consuming, but it didn't quite make sense to me that I as a reader was with Griffin for every thought he had, and yet there were huge things that were not revealed until the end.

My main issue with History is that I think all of the relationships are super unhealthy, even the platonic ones. I know that there were some dynamics here where the characters ended up acknowledging what they had was unhealthy (although not to the extent I would've liked), but others were treated as okay. And I find it very hard to agree that what Theo and Griffin had ought to be remembered by the characters as a healthy relationship.

My feelings about this book are a jumbled mess because love and loss and mental illness are not straightforward. There were parts I liked, like how Griffin's mental illness was focal and not a plot dependent quirk, but also parts I didn't, like how child-like the nerdiness of the characters were, and just their relationships and interactions in general. In the end there were just far too many parts that didn't work for me.

Diversity Note: gay protagonist with OCD and delusional disorder

An ebook copy of this book was provided to me via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.