How I Lost You

Title: How I Lost You
Author: Janet Gurtler
Year Published: 2013
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Pages: 309
Price: USD 10.35 at Book Depository  // Rp. 124.000 at Opentrolley

"I always thought we'd be friends to the end"

This is the first book written by Janet Gurtler that I read. Afer reading so many praises for her previous books, Who I Kissed and If I Tell, I decided to try reading her work by picking her newest work, How I Lost You. The theme of How I Lost You intrigued me.

This book tells a story about friendship and how sometimes it doesn't work anymore. Grace and Kya seems like perfect friends from the outside. Both make great team in paint ball. They are so good so that the all females paint ball team, Lady Grinder, has already watched them play. What people don't know is that Kya actually has a terrible past that only Grace and her family know. Grace has always tried to protect Kya from being hurt again. Grace has always sacrificed herself for Kya. Until one day Kya feels that Grace has done too much for her and decides to leave Grace and be on her own feet.

I feel very connected to this story so much. Well, it's true that best friends don't always last forever because I have experienced it more than once in my life. The latest was when I lost my college best friend. It hurt my heart so much but I didn't think I had a better choice that time than to let her go. She had changed and I didn't think I could get along with her anymore. And now, we had been stop talking to each other for like.. 5 years.

Yes it hurts, but we have to deal with it since each person has his/her own path. We can not force other person to follow our path and we can not force ourselves to follow other person's path. This book actually doesn't give you a solution of what you have to do if this kind of thing happens to you. It also doesn't give any justification. It only tells you that things like this happen and it is normal to feel like Grace or Kya (depends on which shoes you are in. Are you the one who leaves your best friend or the one who is left behind).

I love reading this book although I kinda dissatisfied with the ending. I wish I could read more about Grace and Kya. But well, it is still a good book. I love Janet Gurtler's writing and really, all the details about paint ball really interest me. Maybe I'll try to play it too sometimes (although I think I will get shot pretty quick..)