e-ARC, 416 pages
Release Date: March 7, 2017Published by: Crown Books for Young Readers
Read from: February 22- 26, 2017Stand-aloneSource: Netgalley (I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a just and honest review. This did nothing to influence my review.)For fans of: Realistic Fiction, Contemporary, DEAR, Marginazlized Voices, Sparkly Covers, Tear-Jerkers, YACan a text message destroy your life?
Carver Briggs never thought a simple text would cause a fatal crash, killing his three best friends, Mars, Eli, and Blake. Now Carver can’t stop blaming himself for the accident and even worse, there could be a criminal investigation into the deaths.
Then Blake’s grandmother asks Carver to remember her grandson with a ‘goodbye day’ together. Carver has his misgivings, but he starts to help the families of his lost friends grieve with their own memorial days, along with Eli’s bereaved girlfriend Jesmyn. But not everyone is willing to forgive. Carver’s own despair and guilt threatens to pull him under into panic and anxiety as he faces punishment for his terrible mistake. Can the goodbye days really help?
*MY THOUGHTS*
“People take shelter under cliches. Language is powerless enough in the face of death.“3%
Carver Briggs was seding a text to his friends. Something he does day in and day out. But this time, it seems that it resulted in a fatal crash, killing hi three besst friends. Carver is hit very hard by the pain of losing them, so when one of his friend’s grandmothers comes up with the idea to glorify them by giving them a “goodbye day,” he isn’t too thrilled, but is willing to help however he can.
“I get it, and I’m not trying to be insensitive, but the news doesn’t stop for grief.“7%
Ok, if you followed my updates with this book, you know that I have most of my memory on it gone because I have basically saved every last word of this book too my Kindle. I swear I highlighted EVERYTHING. Zentner is an amazing author who is so detailed, but it’s still not overly done so. It was done just right and I couldn’t be more amazed at what he’s done.
“All I’m saying is that when we’re down, we need the people who love us.“11%
Going along witht that, once upon a time I said I saw Morgan Matson the Queen on YA contemps because she makes an amazing story with the plot and subplot and they always make me laugh and swoon and more. Well I think I’ve found the King. Zentner has done the same things in my eyes but from a male POV and I LOVED both his main characters, form here and TSK.
“I sometimes looks at my bookshelf now and think about how someday I’m going to die without ever reading a lot of the books on there And one might be life-changingly good and I’ll never know.“23%
This is another story where I fell in love with this emotions he brought forth from me. During this books I laughed, cried, got angry, the whole nine yards. It was one of those novels where I began yelling at the characters in the book while getting questioning eyes from my husband.
“We should make a rule that we only spend some of our time talking about the past. […] It doesn’t mean we care about them less. It just means that we still have to live.“23%
The only thing I didn’t care for was the characters. I felt like the dialogue between them was trying too hard, but then again, I’m not exactly sure if that’s what teen boys talk like when I’m not around. It could just be me. Which is why I didn’t choose to knock anything off the rating. Still completely five stars.
“I should wait. I don’t want to come off as a weirdo. But also I’m now keenly aware of how important it is to tell people what you want them to know while you can.“23%
Zentner has quickly climbed up the chart to being one of my favorites. He’s definitely been added to the autobuy list. I look forward to buying this when it comes out. Thank you for another amazing story!
