When History Is All You Left Me opens, the love of 17-year-old Griffin's life is already dead. Theo was Griffin's best friend, boyfriend and first everything. Now Griffin has to face both Theo's funeral and Jackson, the guy Theo started dating after he left New York and went to California for college. Griffin hates Jackson--they even deliver competing eulogies--but begins to realize that he's the only other person who understands what it was like to date Theo and lose him.
The novel bounces back and forth in time between the giddy start of Griffin and Theo's romance and Griffin's current devastation. Adam Silvera (More Happy Than Not) is wrenchingly good at writing about grief. He captures the huge, howlingly lonely feelings of loss, but also the little things, like feeling guilty for enjoying a song or wanting to watch TV: "I just want to know when it'll be possible to laugh again," thinks Griffin. "And when it'll be okay." As Griffin tries to make sense of life without Theo, and his conflicted feelings about Jackson, he is also dealing with worsening OCD.
Much of the book consists of Griffin's internal talking to Theo, so we get a full sense of the churn of his mind and the rawness of his heart. Theo's death is going to be painful for a long time. But the novel quietly shows how dealing with loss will help Griffin see himself and his world more clearly. It's a painful coming of age, but a beautifully written and very satisfying one. --Ali Davis, freelance writer and playwright, Los Angeles, Calif.