- Hardcover: 208 pages
- Publisher: Puffin; First Impression edition (30 Aug 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0141383437
- ISBN-13: 978-0141383439
- Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 14.2 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 287,687 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
What I Was
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Rosoff's latest and perhaps most perfect novel ...it's already a classic --The Sunday Times
Review
A plot that is at once thrilling and sensitively told
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Subtle, lucid, brilliant - a masterpiece,
By Edmund Prowe (Kent, England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: What I Was (Paperback)
This is a luminous, lucid, brilliant book - which is ironic, as in some ways it's a book about what isn't said or seen. Told in a subtle, witty, intelligent voice, this is funny, thoughtful and ultimately very moving - so complex and skilful that the "love story" or "coming-of-age story" labels simply don't do justice to it.
In the mundane, bleak world of a sixties boarding school next to the sinking East Anglian coastline, the narrator stumbles on the hut where a boy, Finn, lives alone, fending for himself. Entranced by Finn's beauty, strength, and freedom, he observes and then shares the idyll, escaping from a background of mediocrity and duplicity before inadvertently acting as the catalyst for the destruction of Finn's life. The relationship is perfectly judged - subtle, understated, described with a warmth and honesty that is laudable - and Rosoff encapsulates the feeling of attraction that is less I-want-you than I-want-to-be-you perfectly. The book acknowledges the self-absorption and naivety of the narrator without his losing our sympathy, and while his love for Finn is ambiguous at least it remains one of the most recognisable portrayals of desire I've ever read. In terms of action, it's fairly slow - don't anticipate wars, shootings, plane crashes, car crashes... and yet I found it the most compelling of Rosoff's books, utterly absorbing and truthful. It is also, of course, very funny. I notice that the new cover is utterly romantic fiction - but don't be put off. This is far more gripping and interesting than it looks. It is probably more of a women's book than a men's one - I found the narrator perfectly male, but then I'm female, and my male friends have expressed some doubts - but it is sharper, more austere and has more integrity than that soft-focus seascape would seem to imply. So buy it anyway. Buy the kids' edition. Or buy one of each.
27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A story of friendship and love,
By Susan Fitzroy (London, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: What I Was (Hardcover)
This is another wonderful book from Meg Rosoff. As she demonstrated in her previous novels How I Live Now and Just In Case, Ms Rosoff has a gift for getting inside the adolescent mind. What I Was is a story of friendship and love, recounted by Hilary in his old age when the coast of East Anglia, where his story unfolds, has slipped into the sea.
It is 1962 and Hilary, a difficult and unhappy 16 year old at a boarding school in Suffolk meets Finn, a boy of his own age who lives alone in a fisherman's cottage and whose enviable existence has somehow escaped the education authorities. The story of their relationship is sensitively and intelligently told, there is a tragedy, a twist and a scandal, and an ending which had this reader in tears.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Read,
By Jade x (Cwmbran, Wales) - See all my reviews
This review is from: What I Was (Hardcover)
This book conjures up the same heart warming, life-questioning emotions as How I Live Now did, something that I felt Just In Case did not.
I just wish Rosoff's books were longer, with such intriguing writing methods she constantly keeps us hooked to the story. Some how I have come to believe that Rosoff works best when describing the long and often harrowing journies of a person and the architecture of the buildings they come across, as both How I Live Now and What I Was contained these features, something that made the books stand out to me. With Hilary describing his journey from St.Oswald school to the life he wishes he has in Finn's hut, both factors of architecture and journey are opened up and gives us a vivid imagination of what the journey is like. The emotion between two people, I believe, has never failed to be written well by Rosoff and at times can bring on laughter and tears with just one line. I hope Rosoff will continue to write such amazing books as this.
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