When it comes to being the new girl, Mclean is an expert. She's made four moves since her parents' very unpleasant and very public divorce in her hometown two years earlier, and she's tried out a new persona in each place. She already has a new identity planned out for her arrival at Lakeview, but when she meets Dave, somehow her real identity slips out. Dave and his friends are not like the people she's met in the past, and in bonding with them over a shared community service project and the love of college basketball, Mclean is forced to be herself and make peace with her past.
What Happened to Goodbye is a smart, magnetic book about identity, relationships, and love that will make you wish you could crawl between the page and live with the characters in their messy world. Mclean hasn't really bonded with anyone since her parents' divorce, and while she gets along with her dad just fine, her relationship with her mom is tepid at best. Lakeview is full of surprises and unexpected friends, and Mclean is forced to connect with people. She finds a friend in her next-door-neighbor Dave, who is academically brilliant, but not always so social, and becomes friends with Deb, a loner with surprising talents. As she opens her real self up to these friends, she's forced to deal with her mother, who is pushy and seemingly ignorant of her daughter's resentment for her part in the divorce. Between college basketball games, working at her father's new restaurant and building a model replica of Lakeview, Mclean re-learns what it means to get to know someone and works at re-building a relationship she once thought was over and done, all the while fighting the temptation to cut and run when things get hard. A little romantic and very funny, What Happened to Goodbye is an excellent novel about relationships and friendship. Dessen has outdone herself yet again in this complicated, funny, and touching book.
What Happened to Goodbye is a smart, magnetic book about identity, relationships, and love that will make you wish you could crawl between the page and live with the characters in their messy world. Mclean hasn't really bonded with anyone since her parents' divorce, and while she gets along with her dad just fine, her relationship with her mom is tepid at best. Lakeview is full of surprises and unexpected friends, and Mclean is forced to connect with people. She finds a friend in her next-door-neighbor Dave, who is academically brilliant, but not always so social, and becomes friends with Deb, a loner with surprising talents. As she opens her real self up to these friends, she's forced to deal with her mother, who is pushy and seemingly ignorant of her daughter's resentment for her part in the divorce. Between college basketball games, working at her father's new restaurant and building a model replica of Lakeview, Mclean re-learns what it means to get to know someone and works at re-building a relationship she once thought was over and done, all the while fighting the temptation to cut and run when things get hard. A little romantic and very funny, What Happened to Goodbye is an excellent novel about relationships and friendship. Dessen has outdone herself yet again in this complicated, funny, and touching book.
Do you know the Sarah Dessen formula? An everygirl with an unusual name; a strained parent-daughter relationship full of misunderstandings; narration that at many times has its typical, literal meaning, along with a larger thematic one; and a nice-boy love interest. Despite the predictability of the elements, however, Dessen never, ever, ever fails to deliver a poignant and teen-pleasing read. Her tenth novel, WHAT HAPPENED TO GOODBYE, will satisfy old and new fans.
There is probably no other contemporary YA author that I read as consistently as Sarah Dessen. I was thinking about why this is. Anyone can take the aforementioned elements of the formula and write a novel containing those, but Dessens attention to typically overlooked human details is unmatched, and is what makes her books stand out. The narration effortlessly makes note of the quirks that make characters human: the funny way they move their hands before they speak, for example, or their habit of turning on all the lights in the house when they come home. I think it was a passage about doing laundry in WHAT HAPPENED TO GOODBYE that made me realize Dessens gift of writing about these details. For most people, laundry is such a part of their lifes routine that we dont stop to think about how ones particular attitude towards and approach to doing laundry is very telling of their personality. But Dessen notes this, as well as other details about everyday life, bringing her novels several rungs above other comparable books.
There is little I find that I can say about characterization, plot, pacing, themes, or writing style that is specific to WHAT HAPPENED TO GOODBYE and not just generalizable to all of Dessens novels. Instead, let me just list all the things about this book that struck me. The lovable chaos at Mcleans dads restaurant. The community model of the town project that the characters work on. Daves charming sense of humor. Deb. (Deb, Deb, Deb! Can there be a story focusing on her, pretty please?) The college basketball lifestyle, and Rileys parents.
Okay, so obviously part of me wishes this story had been more about some of the secondary characters instead of Mcleans pretty typical Dessen-esque bildungsroman, but hey, thats not going to stop WHAT HAPPENED TO GOODBYE from becoming a bestseller. Read it if youre a decade-old Dessen fan like I am. If youre new to Sarah Dessens writings, Id probably recommend starting with one of her older books, such as This Lullaby or The Truth About Forever, but either way you spin your approach to reading this book, you will finish it feeling very happy and content.
There is probably no other contemporary YA author that I read as consistently as Sarah Dessen. I was thinking about why this is. Anyone can take the aforementioned elements of the formula and write a novel containing those, but Dessens attention to typically overlooked human details is unmatched, and is what makes her books stand out. The narration effortlessly makes note of the quirks that make characters human: the funny way they move their hands before they speak, for example, or their habit of turning on all the lights in the house when they come home. I think it was a passage about doing laundry in WHAT HAPPENED TO GOODBYE that made me realize Dessens gift of writing about these details. For most people, laundry is such a part of their lifes routine that we dont stop to think about how ones particular attitude towards and approach to doing laundry is very telling of their personality. But Dessen notes this, as well as other details about everyday life, bringing her novels several rungs above other comparable books.
There is little I find that I can say about characterization, plot, pacing, themes, or writing style that is specific to WHAT HAPPENED TO GOODBYE and not just generalizable to all of Dessens novels. Instead, let me just list all the things about this book that struck me. The lovable chaos at Mcleans dads restaurant. The community model of the town project that the characters work on. Daves charming sense of humor. Deb. (Deb, Deb, Deb! Can there be a story focusing on her, pretty please?) The college basketball lifestyle, and Rileys parents.
Okay, so obviously part of me wishes this story had been more about some of the secondary characters instead of Mcleans pretty typical Dessen-esque bildungsroman, but hey, thats not going to stop WHAT HAPPENED TO GOODBYE from becoming a bestseller. Read it if youre a decade-old Dessen fan like I am. If youre new to Sarah Dessens writings, Id probably recommend starting with one of her older books, such as This Lullaby or The Truth About Forever, but either way you spin your approach to reading this book, you will finish it feeling very happy and content.
