When Haru Was Here by Dustin Thao

For fans of The Ghosts We Keep, When Haru was Here PDF is a messy, painful and at the same time beautiful story about grief and loneliness. And isn’t that cover stunning?

When he loses his best friend, Daniel, Eric more or less stops living. Time passes without him noticing, and he’s in his head a lot. He makes up stories and thinks he sees Daniel everywhere. Then, Eric meets Haru again, the Japanese boy he once had a beautiful day with. Haru becomes Eric’s lifeline, whether he’s real or not.

While reading, I found another summary of this story, probably an older one, and all of a sudden, something in my head clicked. Goosebumps started dancing over my skin because I realized Eric’s feeling of loneliness wasn’t only because of Daniel.

Grief is a complicated thing, and we all cope differently with the abundance of people we love so much. Eric’s coping mechanism is holding on to the beautiful memories he made with Haru and the new ones he’s making. That, he can manage. Real life, he cannot.

This story might seem messy and jumpy, and side characters are hardly visible. I believe my sudden inkling helped me to understand what was happening better, but I also think Dustin Thao wrote Eric’s story like this intentionally. It’s a brilliant concept, even though I also know that it might make people confused. Please just know Eric makes up stories a lot.

This novel shows a very lonely boy being in so much pain, a boy who disjoints from real life because he just can’t cope anymore. And from the moment, I had an my inkling, my chest tightened, and my heart went out to that nineteen-year-old so many times. Those letters and that epilogue … I cried. Of course, I cried—massive tears of love for this lonely and sad boy. But I also smiled because, in the end, I knew he was going to be okay again.

About When Haru Was Here PDF