Since You've Been Gone by Morgan Matson
Published 2014 · 90,000 words · about 6 hours at an average pace · Coming-of-Age, Literary Fiction, Romance
How hard is Since You've Been Gone to read?
Since You've Been Gone scores 18 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 18 out of 100
- Straightforward contemporary teen prose. No specialized vocabulary or challenging language.
- Sentence structure: 18 out of 100
- Clean, readable sentences in first person. Matson writes with conversational clarity and occasional run-on energy during emotional moments.
- Abstraction: 15 out of 100
- Entirely grounded in specific summer experiences. The novel thinks through actions and encounters, not philosophical reflection.
- Information density: 18 out of 100
- Leisurely summer pacing. The list structure gives clear progression but each dare unfolds with room to breathe.
- Narrative indirection: 22 out of 100
- Flashback chapters to Emily and Sloane's friendship create mild temporal complexity. The mystery of Sloane's disappearance adds a light whodunit element.
- Symbolic density: 20 out of 100
- The list symbolizes Emily's growth blueprint. Sloane's absence represents the loss of a social crutch. Symbols are transparent and functional.
- Ironic distance: 12 out of 100
- Emily is sincere and self-conscious but never ironic. Matson plays the emotional beats straight.
- Resolution withholding: 18 out of 100
- Sloane's disappearance is explained. Emily completes her transformation. The romance resolves. Full closure on all fronts.
- Structural complexity: 22 out of 100
- Present-tense summer narrative with interspersed flashbacks. The list provides an organizing structure. Dual timeline is simple to follow.
How Since You've Been Gone is regarded
Since You've Been Gone holds a literary regard score of 33 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.