Looking Back

Finished July 19
What I Was by Meg Rosoff
I've always enjoyed everything I've read by Rosoff, and this was no exception. This book has an elderly man looking back at the year he was sixteen. The year was 1962 and he was in his third boarding school, having been kicked out of the previous two. He has no real ambition and tries to keep to himself and do as little as possible, that is until he meets another young man, who lives alone in a hut on the beach. When he meets Finn, he finds himself drawn to the life Finn lives, simple, doing what he needs to survive and depending on no one but himself. He finds opportunities to escape from school to be with Finn as often as he can, and tries to keep the friendship a secret.
He takes chances and almost gets caught a number of times, and finally when Finn needs his help he must choose to expose the relationship to assist him. There are many themes here from the broad one of global warming and how it affects the environment to the narrator's own self-involvement. This was an interesting look at a turning point in a young man's life and how it determined the rest of his days.