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    Where I Want to Be
    Where I Want to Be
    Where I Want to Be
    Audiobook4 hours

    Where I Want to Be

    Written by Adele Griffin

    Narrated by Ruth Ann Phimister and Jennifer Ikeda

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Critically acclaimed author and National Book Award nominee Adele Griffin is a master at capturing the difficult issues so many teens face. Where I Want to Be tells the poignant story of 18-year-old Jane and her 16-year-old sister Lily. When Lily finds her first love and grows more distant, Jane-already struggling with mental illness-feels a sharp sense of sibling rivalry. But when Jane is hit by a car and killed, Lily must learn to move on.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMar 10, 2008
    ISBN9781436117449
    Where I Want to Be
    Author

    Adele Griffin

    Adele Griffin (b. 1970) is a critically lauded author of children’s and young adult fiction. Born in Philadelphia, she began writing after college, when a job at a children’s publishing house introduced her to the world of young adult literature. She drew praise for her first novel, Rainy Season (1996), a heartfelt portrayal of a young American girl’s life in the Panama Canal Zone in the late 1970s. In books like Sons of Liberty (1997) and Amandine (2001), she continued to explore the sometimes harsh realities of family life, and become known for intuitive, honest, and realistic fiction. Over the past several years, Griffin has won a number of awards, including National Book Award nominations for Sons of Liberty (1997) and Where I Want to Be (2005). Her books are regularly cited on ALA Best and ALA Notable lists. A number of her novels, such as the four-book Witch Twins series, introduce an element of lighthearted fantasy. Griffin lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.      

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    Reviews for Where I Want to Be

    3.5/5

    47 ratings5 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Lily and Jane are sisters, not very far apart. Jane, the eldest, has some serious, but unspecified, emotional/mental issues. Lily, the youngest does not. As young children they are extremely close, but as they get into high school, Lily follows the traditional teen path - hang out with friends, fall in love with boys, etc. Jane wants everything to stay exactly the same way it always has been. As a result, they grow more distant. And then, Jane is hit by a car and killed.The whole novel takes place after that. Lily is trying to cope with the loss of her sister, and her chapters are told in first person. Jane is in some sort of after-life world-like-this-one, and her chapters are told in third person.The book is well written, fluid with easy transitions from one sister to the other's narrative. But in the end, I was left kind of blank, not feeling like there was a strong point to the novel. In the final chapters, both sisters seem to move forward and to have learned something, but I didn't feel that the story really built up to the resolution. A decent book, but I'm surprised it was a National Book Award finalist.
    • 4/5
      One home. One sisterhood. Two distinctly different lives. This grippingly intense story casts a heavy shroud of uncertainty, suspense, and intrigue at the first turn of a page. From chapter to chapter, readers teeter between the experiences of sisters Jane and Lily. This rotation of personal perspectives embodies far more than alternate views—it dramatically recounts a shuddering life-changing event from two very different angles. Though separated by only a couple of years in age, the sisters are miles apart in their perception of what is real and what is fantasy. As Jane sinks deeper into her insurmountable battle with mental illness, Lily struggles to make sense of the older sister she once adored. With its exceptionally dark premise, gut-wrenching realizations, and emotionally striking plot, this young adult novel invokes powerful introspection within the young mind.
    • 3/5
      Jane did not feel she was in her younger sister Lily’s shadow, even though Lily had many friends and a steady boyfriend. What saddened Jane was Lily no longer wanted to play games with her, the let’s pretend of their childhood years. Jane’s disability, her mental quirks and emotionally fragile nature brought a wall up between the girls, as neither could fully understand the other. After Jane is killed in a car accident, Lily searches for a way to deal with the memories, the belief that she could have been a better sister. But this story is also about Jane and her journey after life.Where I Want To Be is set a few months after Jane’s death, and it alternates between Lily, who has feelings of guilt, and Jane, who is existing a place somewhere nearby, not quite in or out of our world. Lily is totally unaware of Jane’s situation; she is focused on her fear of change, especially as on her boyfriend Caleb has graduated from high school and is heading towards the future, a future that could see him in college, far from Providence, Rhode Island and far from Lily. Change is also something Jane is having trouble with, as she is now in a world where her grandparents are alive again, taking care of her as they did when she was a child. She accepts this but also remembers her past, where Lily was the pretty, popular one and Jane was the one who never fit in. But Jane is not jealous or petty, she is confused by the rules of the world that just don’t make sense to her. And just like Lily, Jane resists change, any change that might alter her feelings, especially those concerning of Lily.Ultimately, this is a story of forgiveness, understanding and letting go, of realizing that change will happen and it is not all bad. Both sisters have to release the past to able to move forward with their existence, both during and after life. For readers who are ready for mature themes, including mental health problems, guilt and death, this book presents a complex and thoughtful story.
    • 1/5
      did not like this book. at all. bothered the crap out of me. and teen book club referred to it as "the book that shall not be discussed."
    • 1/5
      A very tough book to start - but the ending is rewarding. Alternating chapters tell a story from the Point of View (POV) of two sisters, one alive, one dead. The dead sister was mentally challenged in life and so her chapters tend to not make much sense.