Been Here All Along ~ Sandy Hall

The theme for December was love and I thought this was going to be a super easy theme to pick a book for, all it needed was a love interest somewhere in the book and I could read whatever I wanted without thinking about it. And then, I picked books that didn’t have a love story sub-plot. Been Here All Along was going to be my book for June’s theme (LGBTQ+) and it didn’t happen because I had unread books on my shelves that also fit the theme. As it’s practically Christmas, I thought I’d treat myself to rereading it as it is such a feel-good story.

Been Here All Along is not a very long story, but it focuses on the relationship between childhood best friends Gideon and Kyle and the turning point where they go from being best friends to something more and all the drama that comes with that. 

Despite not being a very long book, Sandy Hall manages to create beautifully complex characters. It also feels like a real high school, whilst there are the stereotypical cliques (jock, popular kids, nerds etc.) they are nowhere near as defined as they are in mean girls or high school musical and overlap quite a bit. No one seems to despise each other just for existing. There is drama because how could there not be with a group of teenagers forced to spend their days together, but it’s never end-of-the-world drama even for those affected the most.

To top it all off, Hall doesn’t even vilify the love rival who does some misguided things when she is in a miserable place. Ruby then tries to fix everything to make things right between Gideon and Kyle because she knows that she had to take responsibility for everything and it just made me happy to see teenagers acting like teenagers but still being mature almost-adults.

Been Here All Along is such a feel-good novel that it just makes you feel warm and cosy inside. It one hundred per cent deserves more than five stars. 

C🌙