Review: What Happened to Goodbye

What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My Opinion:

What I Liked: It was just so heartfelt, realistic, and moral-worthy. What Happened to Goodbye was a story that I could relate to in almost every way. Moving around is not easy, especially when you have had lifelong friendships and relationships with people you’ve known your entire life. And suddenly moving out of the blue does put a monkey wrench in whatever you had established and you’re certainly not going to be happy about it. And moving around a lot can make a person nervous and even run from commitments like friendships or other relationships because they fear they will have to uproot to somewhere else again. And Mclean definitely portrays all the emotions and characteristics of a person tired of moving around a lot but willing to do it again (since it’s been like that for her whole life) and I understand her nervousness for commitments when she meets Dave, Riley, Deb and others and starts to like them.

And I understand when Mclean is not so friendly with her mother. I mean when one parent cheats on another, the child can’t really be expected to have fond feelings for that cheating parent. So it’s understandable when she’s harsh and withdrawn from her mother but later on accepts and understands her mother more in her life. Her father’s feelings she also understands as if you lose one thing, then you start depending on other things, for Mclean’s dad it was his work, so again it’s realistic and totally not hard to get.

Meeting Dave is like meeting her reflection in a mirror. She sees Dave’s troubles as a boy genius and also gets how he wants to live a normal life and sees similarities that eventually unravel and break down her walls. Her friends are also an another sign that even if we think that other people won’t accept our position and would leave us alone, Mclean’s friends stick by her as true friends because they realize that the person inside is more important than what they reflect on the outside and what they show.

Adding up to my conclusion of a well written and satisfying book.

What I’d Liked to See: Nothing to suggest here. It’s all well done.

Recommendation: This book is a must read, and for people who definitely love a bit of problem solving, troubled point of views, YA, and of course understanding who they are on the inside as well. Truly a fabulous book I would recommend as it has content hardly seen nowadays in YA novels so a heartfelt recommendation.

Thank you all for reading.

-J.B

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