Book Review For The Last Time We Say Goodbye

Stars: 3.5 out of 5.

Date completed: July 9, 2017

Review (contains some spoilers, but nothing major).

Well, I wanted to like this book more than I ultimately did. It does have a special place in my heart though because it was when I was reading this book, the idea for this website was born. Also, the author is a fellow bereaved siblings, so she gets points there. <3

I also liked how real the grief is. As I was reading the book, I felt that Cynthia Hand must know what she is writing about and sure enough, in the back "From the Author" section, she wrote that like the main character's brother in the book, Cynthia's brother also killed himself. There are real powerful moments in the book when she talks about what she experiencing. Although I did not lose my brother to suicide, the feelings that Alexis (the main character) expresses are spot on.

The book itself fell short for me though because some of it seemed unrealistic and I didn't feel like the characters were fleshed out and "real" enough for me. Some examples that spring to mind are the fact that Alexis winds up picking a lock to see if someone else killed themselves and it was very obvious that this person did not so it just felt weirdly uncomfortable and unrealistic to read that part. Also, I love me a big book. The bigger the better.

With that said, this book, at 386 pages, was too long. There were definitely parts that could be snipped.

Overall, I would recommend reading it IF you are going through grief because there are definitely parts that are relateable.