Morgan Matson Newbie

Hello, my name is Meghan and I'm a Morgan Matson Newbie.  I'm taking part in  the Unexpectedly Epic Morgan Matson Week hosted by Tiff over at Mostly YA Lit. Check out all the excitement going on this week.


I'd heard about Morgan Matson and thought, okay whatever.  I'll be honest--contemporary novels aren't exactly my forte. Neither are romances and I judged and decided that it all looked a little too much like both of those genres for me.

But I kept hearing about Since You've Been Gone.  I read about it and people were talking about it and other teachers at school were reading it.  Promises that it wasn't just a romance kept popping up at me.  Then our Scholastic Book Fair came to school and they had it, so I bought it.  (By the way, I was very proud of myself for purchasing only two books at this year's book fair, but sad as well because I wanted ALL THE BOOKS!)

It sat on my desk for a week or two before I finally picked it up.  I settled in during our silent reading time (I need a much better name for that!) and almost immediately was drawn in.  When the timer went off 15 minutes later, to signal it was time for us to move onto in a lesson, I almost told my students, "Five more minutes, please!"  Instead I grudgingly closed my book and waited until the next hour to find out more.  So went my day--each hour groaning (out loud a few times) when I had to stop reading.

What was it that intrigued me so much?  What made this book such an important one to read?  I think it's Emily.  I could see myself in her.  My teenage self, my college self, my post college self, my pre-baby self, and my current 34 year old self.  I immediately connected to Emily's shyness and anxiety in social situations because they made sense to me.  The way she would question herself was how I often think about speaking with someone I don't know very well--and sometimes with people I do know well.  All of her characters seemed very real to me, except for Sloane, but that was only because she was this bigger than life persona for Emily.  

What I loved so much about Since You've Been Gone is that this book isn't a romance and it's not even about Emily's friendship with Sloane.  It's about Emily.  Truly and absolutely about Emily finding herself and who she is--without being attached to anyone else.  And then you throw in a little romance in there to spice things up a bit!

Will I read another Morgan Matson book?  Yes.  I will definitely be trying another one of her books, but I don't know where to go from here.  Any recommendations from Morgan Matson aficionados?

If you want to read more about my opinions on Since You've Been Gone, check out yesterday's review here!

And make sure you head on over to Tiff at Mostly YA Lit to read more about Morgan Matson and her books during Unexpectedly Epic Morgan Matson Week!

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