Hardcover, 293 pages
Release Date: February 16, 2016Published by: Knopf Books for Young ReadersStand-aloneSource: BoughtFor fans of: Contemporaries, Grief, Romance, Realistic Fiction, Debuts, YA
Sometimes bad things happen, and we are not the same when they are over.
For months, Tallie McGovern has been coping with the death of her older brother the only way she knows how: by smiling bravely and pretending that she’s okay. She’s managed to fool her friends, her parents, and her teachers so far, yet she can’t even say his name out loud: “N—” is as far as she can go. But when Tallie comes across a letter in the mail, it only takes two words to crack the careful façade she’s built around herself:ORGAN DONOR.Two words that had apparently been checked off on her brother’s driver’s license; two words that her parents knew about—and never confided to her. All at once, everything Tallie thought she understood about her brother’s death feels like a lie. And although a part of her knows he’s gone forever, another part of her wonders if finding the letter might be a sign. That if she can just track down the people on the other end of those two words, it might somehow bring him back.
Hannah Barnaby’s deeply moving novel asks questions there are no easy answers to as it follows a family struggling to pick up the pieces, and a girl determined to find the brother she wasn’t ready to let go of.
*MY THOUGHTS*
When I heard of this book I was all for it. Y’all know how much I LOVE contemps that feature larger issues. Which means I’m really excited for all the books featuring organ donors in YA lately. In fact, this is the second book in a row featuring them that I’ve read featuring this process. (The other was The Way Back to You by Mindi Scott and Michelle Andreani which comes out in May!) I’m not sure if I was trying to break my feels reading these back to back or what…
“…there is no randomness in the universe, only the illusion of randomness. Patterns that we cannot detect because they are too large, or too small.“pg. 121
What happened was a terrible accident, but Tallie can’t stand to let him go. Him being her brother “N—.” Until one day she finds out that her brother has signed up for something that she had no idea about. To be an organ donor. Now she thinks she if she can find the recipients she can bring him back.
“Chase thinks it’s vital to remember the ones who died, but I think of the people left in the wake of each death. The survivors. There are always survivors.“pg. 128
For this story to be about grief, I didn’t feel much of it. I really just felt angry at Tallie. I mean I could tell she was grief stricken. Especially with the accident being what it was. I know she was just going through it with her own way of dealing, but still. She came off more as selfish and mean alot of the time and that bothered me. She didn’t seem to care much about anyone but herself. As for her mean streak, I could tell that she was angry and upset, but she just came off as rude. It just upset me because while reading this I expected to read it and be punched in the gut with feels. I didn’t even come close to it until the end.
“Not every message is made of words.“pg. 156
I also didn’t like some of the things that happened. For this to be realistic fiction, it seemed like nothing happened the way it would have in real life. There were ALOT of things that could have gotten Tallie in serious trouble, but they either let her go on like it was ok because she was grieving. Some things, like the school situation, was ok. I’ve been in that situation before. But to get away with the stuff that she did, something should’ve been done. At least a “serious conversation.” They did nothing and it didn’t make it believable at all.
“Sometimes the things you think will make you feel better… just aren’t the things you need.“pg. 166
The ending is what saved this book for me. It wasn’t what I was expecting out of a book about organ donors because I was hoping for a bit more punch, but it was still emotional in it’s own right.
Overall, I give this
