It's Hard To Say Goodbye To What Happened To Goodbye

• Share This Post
• 0
• Pin It
• 0
• Sparkle (
  0
  )
   

I am very glad I am not a teenager in today's world. There are so many additional pressures and worries that I never had to think about. Luckily there are authors like Sarah Dessen to portray real teenagers and those pressures that they face in the young adult novel, What Happened to Goodbye. In the book, after her parents have a scandalous divorce, Mclean chooses to live with father who is a restaurant consultant. Due to his line of work, he moves around every few months, and Mclean moves around with him from town to town. In each town, Mclean changes her personality to suit her town and her mood. It is easier this way for her to avoid attachments to anyone. Once she arrives in Lakeview, however. she begins to make friends and finds it’s much harder to be genuine with people and form attachments than to pretend.

This book is marketed on the back to be a love story, but I found that storyline to be secondary to the storyline of Mclean healing and learning to trust people again after her parent‘s divorce. Mclean and her mother’s relationship in particular is very complex and truthful. I found myself so torn between the two of them, realizing that in the breakdown of their relationship there was many angles. They were both responsible for the problems and while they both loved each other, they had no idea how to understand each other. The characters are well fleshed out with quirks and interesting back stories, and none of the characters are clichés.

The book is also so well written, I often forgot it was a young adult novel. I think this is a book that anyone of all ages would enjoy. If anything, the only complaint I have about this novel is that it wrapped up its story too quickly. I was not ready to say goodbye to the book.