I think I read more YA now than I did as a teen. When I did, they were rarely contemporary books, and they rarely dealt with heavy themes and topics. Instead, a lot of what was easily available was more superficial, even if it was trying to be deep and dramatic.
YA today still has the superficial stories that readers of the genre still like to devour for fun, but they are balanced out by deeper stories with more to offer its readers. Once such story is You Were Always There by Heidi Dischler. Check out my review of the novel followed by an interview with Dischler below!
You Were Always There plot summary
After the death of her best friend, Addy Taylor, 18-year-old Jessie Hill finds herself lost and alone. She’s determined to move out of Addy’s parents’ house, where she had been staying for the past year, after her homelife with her mother and stepfather became unbearable. Despite her close relationship with the Taylors, Addy feels that it’s no longer appropriate to stay there, even though she doesn’t have the funds or resources to leave quite yet.
Then, Jessie receives a posthumous letter from Addy in the mail asking her to arrive at a favorite coffee shop. There, she meets Addy’s secret boyfriend, Andrew.
During this meeting, the two learn that Addy has left a string of letters, emails, gifts, and videos that she had planned out in her final months. The way to access these materials must be done by the two working together and going out on the “dates” that Addy has arranged for them.
Both Jessie and Andrew are weirded out by Addy’s plan, and they are hesitant to carry them out. However, they know that doing this will allow them to reconnect with Addy for a little while longer. So, they reluctantly agree to do so
During this scavenger hunt, Jessie and Andrew bicker and push back against Addy’s attempts to force them into any kind of relationship, whether it be friendly or romantic. Jessie also has other things to worry about, such as helping her boss, Old Man Murphy, drum up business for the bookstore where she works, solidify her upcoming first semester in college, and trying to check on her distant, strung-out mother without her abusive stepfather getting involved.
All of this feels nearly impossible to do without Addy there for support, and Jessie has trouble standing on her own two feet, despite her best efforts. But the experience shows her what she’s capable of and how to move forward without entirely letting go of her best friend.
The story
You Were Always There is primarily a coming-of-age story from the point of view of a very broken teen. Jessie is very co-dependent, despite having been neglected since she was 11 years old. Her support system is small but stable, yet it’s one that she doesn’t feel she deserves because of her abandonment by the two people who were supposed to take care of her.
The story is very character-driven, and it doesn’t heavily rely on its grabbing premise of a scavenger hunt from beyond the grave but instead on the unpacking of Jessie’s closest relationships. The focus stays on Jessie, who bounces from work to her mother, to the grieving Taylors, to school, to Andrew, and most importantly, to Addy. She is very stuck and has hard time making decisions for herself, yet she finds herself rebelling against the instructions that Addy has left her to follow.
The “dates” that Jessie and Andrew go on start out very rough and quickly become fun, though they’re consistently fun for the reader who joins along as an invisible and invested third party. The story doesn’t try to force the reader to think that they should get together just because Addy wants them to.
A mature reader at least understands both Jessie and Andrew’s hesitation and the pushback they give from not wanting to be forced into doing something they don’t want to do, especially while Addy’s death is still a raw, open wound. At the same time, it’s easy to see Addy’s gift for reading people and how her plan isn’t so much to cause discomfort as to help two lonely people that she cares about find someone else to lean on besides her.
The characters
The characters in the story vary wildly in their personalities, motivations, and how they handle conflict. Jessie is likable but somewhat immature and pathetic in her approach to life. She’s always looking for help and then feeling sorry for herself that she’s unable to help herself.
Luckily, Jessie has people who are willing to help. Her relationship with her boss, bookstore owner Old Man Murphy, is particularly entertaining, with his grumpy demeanor thinly veiling his underlying kindness. He offers himself as an emotional punching bag for Jessie where she can get out of her own head and work through her struggles.
The Taylors are model parents who do nothing but show Jessie that she is welcome in their home, even after Addy is gone. In reality, they have been caring for her for years, though Jessie feels only like a burden to them. And because they have no real guardianship over her, they maintain their distance. I found it remarkable how well they were able to handle their grief while still showing that they were grieving.
Andrew too finds himself alone with no support system, though he comes across as more self-sufficient than Jessie. There’s a bit of a rivalry between them at first, as if hogging the grief over Addy for themselves. There’s also the pushback of Jessie not wanting to “inherit” Andrew from Addy despite seeming to develop feelings for him which then irks her when he outright rejects those feelings.
The writing
Dischler’s writing is very fluid and focused. It has the tone of a modern YA novel without feeling like it’s of a certain time. There are no pop culture references or special teen speak that is going to go extinct in the next few years, and the central themes will endure.
There is obviously darkness to the story without feeling overly dramatic or shocking. Addy’s death looms over the entire story, but Dischler shows how life goes on, even at a crawl, as Jessie navigates each day without her while being drawn back into her grief in Addy’s messages. They keep her going as a lifeline to her world before Addy’s death, but it’s also something she comes to resent in time as she tires of the revelations that come out of those messages and the hold she feels that it tethers to her friend who is not coming back.
I felt like the story delivered on its concept. However, it didn’t end in the typical YA way, wrapping things up neatly and showing how much the characters have grown.
Jessie does grow, but she grows in a way that’s appropriate for the time that has passed. A lot is left open ended, but ultimately, it ends hopeful. Just because some conflicts got resolved doesn’t mean that they will stay resolved or that new conflicts won’t pop up, but hopefully, Jessie has the ability to deal with them when the time comes.
Each chapter is fully packed with revelations, interactions, and forward motion that keeps you wanting to read on. And even the predictable elements have their own spin of unpredictability that I found refreshing and bold.
My recommendation
I recommend You Were Always There to anyone looking for a tearjerker YA read that isn’t too heavy or hokey. This story has well-rounded, imperfect characters, a nice balance of side plots and varying relationships with our hero, and it teaches a real-world lesson about how life is verses how it should be.
My rating
An interview with Heidi Dischler
This book feels like it needed to be extensively plotted out in advance, especially in relation to the series of videos, letters, and emails from Addy that are slowly revealed throughout the story. Did you outline or plot it out in advance, or was it written more loosely as you went along?
After finding out a loose idea for this novel, it definitely was outlined in advance! I basically chose all of Addy’s secrets, in what order I wanted them revealed, and then went from there. So maybe not “extensively” (because I still love to be surprised when my characters decide something that I may not have known – if you’re a writer, you know what I’m talking about!), but definitely outlined for Addy’s portion of the novel.
The book is written in the third person, despite being a very personal story. How did you end up landing on this point of view verses first person from Jessie’s point of view?
If I’m being completely honest, third person is just what I’m most comfortable with as a writer. I’ve definitely done first person before, but sometimes it can come off a little shallower in my opinion.
With first person, while you get the closeness to your main character, you lose a lot of the connection with other characters. But maybe that just means I’m really bad at writing in first person!!
How did you come up with the title for the novel?
A lot of what Jessie struggles with as a character is feeling isolated, alone, and like she has no one to call family. You Were Always There as a novel shows many ways as to how Jessie really wasn’t alone at all. So, this feeling of being accepted, valued, and loved brought about the phrase “you were always there” because, even though she felt like she was, Jessie truly wasn’t alone at all.
Do you have a favorite character?
I am obviously so biased because I love all my characters, but Old Man Murphy is a personal favorite. I am a sucker for grumpy old men who hide the fact that they’re really teddy bears on the inside. Carl from Up is one of my favorite characters (and Ove from A Man Called Ove).
The dynamic between Jessie and Old Man Murphy is one of the most captivating relationships in the book. Was this based on any real-life relationship?
As far as real-life relationships go, I can’t say that I have that specific dynamic in my life. It’s just one of my favorite bookish stereotypes to have the “guru” bookstore owner!
Jessie struggles with the decision as to whether or not to go to college. What advice do you have for teens who are on the fence with the same decision?
Colleges, trades, and careers are such complicated topics. Since I’ve worked in a high school (and a college before that), I’ve spoken to many students about decisions like these.
In all honesty, these answers are never black and white. What I would say to someone struggling with that decision is that when they finally make a decision to not stress if things don’t go according to plan.
I have changed majors, career paths, and so many plans. It’s okay to decide something (just like Jessie swearing to her mother that she’d go to college) and change your mind.
When your daughter reads this book one day, what do you want her to take away from the story?
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve written (and then deleted and rewritten) this answer. My daughter is so important to me, and I hope that she never feels immense pain or grief like many of my characters do (even though in life, grief is often inevitable).
I think I would want her to see the characters, feel the love of those characters, and know that the love that I put on these pages is all for her, her dad, and the wonderful family that we’ve built together. Then when grief and sadness does eventually find her, I would want her to read this story and know, while grief may not be linear and may never go away, that it can be conquered. That when you surround yourself with those you choose and the family you’ve made, you’ll never be alone.
What’s next for you?
I’ve been working on a novel that’s a little more New Adult rather than Young Adult. It will follow this college-aged girl as she tries to gain custody of her little brother and get him out of the foster care system.
If you couldn’t tell already, I LOVE emotionally complex stories that let you sympathize (if not empathize) with the main characters as they go through some of the toughest situations in their lives. I’ve also been working at a high school for the past few years, so I really wanted to explore more complex family dynamics like I did with Jessie, Addy, and Addy’s parents.
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