WISH YOU WEREN'T HERE by ERIN BALDWIN

 NATHANIEL GLANZMAN Reviews

 Wish You Weren’t Here by Erin Baldwin 

(Viking Books for Young Readers, 2024)

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If all I told you about Wish You Weren’t Here by Erin Baldwin was that it involves a rivalry with a popular girl, you might make a few incorrect assumptions. Perhaps you’d think it was about two straight girls fighting over a straight boy. Or that the conflict involved petty drama and high school politicking. Thankfully, Wish You Weren’t Here subverts these tropes. The two main characters are brown (The main character is Filipina and the love interest is Indian, specifically Gujarati) and the story takes place at summer camp.

 

            Oh, wait. I forgot the most important part: they end up together.

 

            You read correctly! Wish You Weren’t Here is a slow-burn, sapphic, frienemies-to-lovers romantic comedy involving two brown girls in a dreamy, nostalgic setting. What’s not to like?

 

            One of my toxic traits (that I get to express in a healthy way when reviewing books) is extensively researching why someone is the way they are. Juliette is shown throughout the text to be friendly and loving, but can lash out in moments of weakness. I appreciated reading about a less-than-perfect point of view character. In Wish You Weren’t Here, the reader is given multiple lenses from which to view Juliette’s psychology.

 

            A running theme in the book is Juliette’s battle with her core wounds. One of those wounds is feeling rejected because many people have labeled her too “intense.” This insecurity causes Juliette to resent her frienemy-turned-crush Priya, who is perceived as being poised and put together. It should be noted that any supporting character who genuinely cares about Juliette does not admonish her for being “intense.”

 

            One of the reasons why Juliette loves Fogridge Sleepaway Camp is because she can escape the judgment of her family. She has many siblings; one of them—Eloise—seems to be favored by their parents due to choosing a more “secure” career path. Anyone who grew up in an Asian immigrant family would be familiar with this pain.

 

            How Juliette’s upbringing affected her—as well as why she is jealous of Priya—can be summed up by this passage:

            “When the time came for my mom to choose between singing lessons for me and computer coding classes for my teenage sister, she chose Eloise. Because, she’d said, coding is a real skill that Eloise can make a real career out of someday. Singing is fine for fun, but we need to live in reality.

            And do you know what? She was right. Now that I’m faced with college and the real world, I see that I never could have made a career out of my voice. People rarely do. Famous artists get famous because they have connections or they’re extremely lucky, or both. Priya Pendleys get famous. Juliette Barrera-Wrights get steady white-collar jobs at The Business Factory and try to suppress the knowledge that once upon a time they were good at the trapeze.

            Not all of us can follow our dreams.” (Baldwin 125-126)

 

            Given that the entire book is written through Juliette’s perspective, it would be easy to assume that Priya is portrayed as a villain. However, that is not what happens. A lot of the conflict between Juliette and Priya is born from Juliette knowing that she does not have a justifiable reason to dislike her. Priya is shown throughout the text to be kind, diplomatic and talented at camp activities. Much of Juliette’s frustration with Priya comes from her own insecurities and perceived rejection. I deeply appreciated that the narrative recognized this and did not justify Juliette’s sometimes immature behavior.

 

            Wish You Weren’t Here is a delightfully voicey and fluffy debut. It does not have a particularly high-stakes conflict—unless you count fun banter between friends—but that’s part of its charm. I’m excited to read any future release from Erin Baldwin who was born in the Philippines, raised in Jersey City, N.J. and now lives in Colorado.

 

*****

Nathaniel Glanzman is a sensitivity reader who has read for major publishers and private clients since 2018. He creates videos on YouTube about the representation of marginalized people in fiction at @NateReadsDiversely.