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    You Were Here
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    You Were Here
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    You Were Here
    Audiobook12 hours

    You Were Here

    Written by Gian Sardar

    Narrated by Emily Rankin, MacLeod Andrews, Cassandra Campbell and

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Readers of Kate Atkinson will delight in this suspenseful and romantic debut novel about a woman haunted by nightmares and her grandmother's role in a doomed love triangle almost seventy years before.
     
    Death, accidental and early, has always been Abby Walters's preoccupation. Now thirty-three and eager to settle down with her commitment-shy boyfriend, a recurring dream from her past returns: a paralyzing nightmare of being buried alive, the taste of dirt in her mouth cloying and real. But this time the dream reveals a name from her family's past. Looking for answers, Abby returns home to small-town Minnesota for the first time in fourteen years, where she reconnects with her high school crush, now a police detective on the trail of a violent criminal. When Abby tries on her grandmother's mesmerizing diamond ring, a ring she always dreamed would be hers, she discovers a cryptic note long hidden beneath the box's velvet lining. What secret was her grandmother hiding? And could this be the key to what's haunting Abby? As she begins to uncover the traces of a love triangle gone shockingly wrong nearly seventy years before, we, too, see that the layers of our lives may echo a past we've never known.
             

    Cast of Narrators:
    Emily Rankin, as Abby
    MacLeod Andrews, as Aidan
    Cassandra Campbell, as Claire
    Kim Mai Guest, as Eva
    Scott Brick, as William
         
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateMay 16, 2017
    ISBN9781524750824
    Unavailable
    You Were Here
    Author

    Gian Sardar

    Gian Sardar was born in Los Angeles, California. Her father is from Kurdistan of Iraq, and her mother is from Minnesota. She studied creative writing at Loyola Marymount University, is the author of the novel You Were Here, and is the coauthor of the memoir Psychic Junkie. Gian’s work has appeared in the New York Times and Confrontation Magazine and on Salon.com, among other places. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, son, and insane dog, and she enjoys gardening, cooking, and other forms of procrastination. For more information, visit www.giansardar.com.

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    Reviews for You Were Here

    3.5/5

    17 ratings6 reviews

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    • 4/5
      When I first began reading this novel, it was dragging. I almost gave up on this book within the first 30 pages, but others' reviews on this book urged me to get past the 50-page mark because "that's where it really gets good". So I did. And they were right. In reality, this is a novel that consists of 3 stories:

      1. the story of the detective and the serial rapist,

      2. the story of Claire, Eva, and William (from the past)

      3. the story of Abby, trying to figure out this mystery and trying to figure out her life

      The author masterfully links these 3 stories to create a novel that flows beautifully and tells a complex tale about love, loss, life, and regrets. The characters were drawn up wonderfully and were each unique. The mysteries in this novel kept me on my toes and made me continue flipping pages well into the night. There were times when I felt a bit overwhelmed by the sheer number of plot lines being thrown at me; I would get engrossed in one mystery only to be jerked out of it and placed into another one. However, it all resolved itself in the end and made for a satisfying novel. There were certain things that the author mentions but never really comes back to, and this would be my one criticism of the novel; I like for everything to be wrapped up nicely and having open-ended elements tend to bother me a bit. But in light of this remarkable story, I will forgive this! If you are looking for a deep and complex mystery, I would highly recommend this novel! Just make sure to give it 50 pages!
    • 5/5
      This was another story where I just need more. I'm so sad that it's over. I loved pretty much everything about this. Gian Sardar created a character, Abby, that I so resonated with. Her fear of the unknown, of being constantly afraid of some tragic circumstance just around the corner that cannot be prepared for. "...a mind that's never been easy on its owner." Abby is so real to me. Her relationship with her long-term boyfriend, her best friend, her mother, her childhood crush, her hometown, I'm sorry to keep repeating myself but it all felt so real. Sardar has a darkly poetic way of writing that drew me in. Her words were powerful, but that power isn't presented with huge, daunting words. Rather, her descriptions of houses and weather and feelings seem to be written from experience. For example, a description I loved: "There's nothing so beautiful, she once told Hannah, as a parking lot late at night when the snow has just begun." Simple, yet I instantly understood and recognized the beauty. There is a complexity in its simplicity, and I felt that consistently in Sardar's writing throughout this book. What an amazing, slow-burning whodunnit, with so many minor clues hidden that made me go, 'Oh my god, of course,' more than once. I loved the two time-periods that were interconnected, loved the characters from both time-periods, and probably obvious, but I loved this book. Thank you to Penguin First to Read for the opportunity to read this book in advance.
    • 2/5
      Boring, stupid, and way too long. I did not feel emotionally connected to any of the characters, and the author's style of writing was unnecessarily cryptic at times which I found annoying. Who names a character "Ketty" by the way? And her use of the word "conjure" was excessive - find another verb! Do not recommend.
    • 4/5
      This was a fantastic mystery that kept me turning pages well into the night to find out how the story would end. The first 50 pages or so were kind of slow but keep on reading because once things start to happen, you won't want to put it down.The story is told in two time periods. The modern story is Abby's. Abby lives in LA and keeps having the same dream that she's had for years but this time she hears a name in her dream and when her mother knew of the person that she dreamed about she decided that she needs to go home to Minnesota for the first time in years to try to find out what was causing her dreams. While she is home, she meets one of the first boys that she had a crush on. He is now a police detective working on the case of a serial rapist in their town. So Abby's story is all about her dreams and her history and the case of the serial rapist. Her grandmother's story takes in her best friend, whose husband is having an affair and plans to leave her. The author did a fantastic job of interweaving these two time lines and two plots and her characters are great.I really enjoyed this novel - there was a lot of mystery, a major bad guy and a bit of romance - how can you go wrong?
    • 1/5
      Rarely do I ever put a book down as a DNF but I just could not get into this one. There were a lot of names thrown out and it was hard to know which names would develop into characters the reader would get to be familiar with later. Typically, I enjoy books with parallel plots and that jump from past to present. However, there were so many characters introduced in both tenses that it came off as overwhelming to me. Furthermore, I did not care for one of the main characters in the present tense, Abby. I was not sure if she was supposed to have a panic disorder, anxiety, or if her tragic theatrics are what attracted the attention of her boyfriend, a screenwriter looking for his big break. The meltdown that Abby has at a restaurant, where she just got into her hometown that she hadn't been to in a long time, with her mother and her mother's best friend about a potential serial rapist in town was what made me put the book down for good. Maybe it's because I'm a city girl and her hometown was small suburb of Minneapolis, and therefore she might have been in imminent danger. But it just did not connect for me nor did it seem realistic.DNF at 28%, maybe some time away from the book will allow me to come back and pick it up again.Please Note: an electronic copy of this book was generously provided for free from Penguin Random House's First To Read Program in exchange for an honest review.Please also note: for readers who may be triggered or offended, there were mentions of infidelity, sexual harrassment, incest, violence, murder, and rape.
    • 3/5
      You Were Here by Gian Sardar is two mysteries in one and a ghost story. Abby Walters suffers from paralyzing nightmares about being buried alive. When she wakes with the name Claire Ballantine on her lips, she decides to leave her home and boyfriend in L.A. and look for answers in the Minnesota town where she grew up. Aidan Mackenzie is also on Abby’s mind. Aidan was “the boy who got away in high school” and is now a police officer in Makade, pursuing a mystery of his own. Who’s raping women in this otherwise quiet town?Told in alternating stories, almost seventy years apart, You Were Here attempts to fit a lot into one book. Claire’s story and its connection to Abby are interesting and in itself, would have made a good gothic mystery. I found the Aidan-Abby reconnection and the modern-day crime drama less effective and add-ons.