I chose to pick up When You Were Here because I knew that it took place in Japan, a place very near and dear to me. 
 The story itself was just okay. I appreciated how the author didn't take the obvious route with a love interest and instead decided to go in another direction. 
 But I don't know...I guess the slow pace to self-discovery choked out everything else. I never felt like there was much to the story, other than the main character deciding how he felt about everyone else in his life. Is that a story in and of itself? I guess so. But I'd hoped for more than just a resolution between a son and a mother, a brother and a sister, and a boy and his ex girlfriend. 
 Dr. Phil might like this book, though.