Publisher: HarperTeen
Genre: YA Realistic Fiction
My Rating: 2/5
There's death all around us. We just don't pay attention. Until we do.
The last time Lex was happy, it was before. When she had a family that was whole. A boyfriend she loved. Friends who didn't look at her like she might break down at any moment.
Now she's just the girl whose brother killed himself. And it feels like that's all she'll ever be.
As Lex starts to put her life back together, she tries to block out what happened the night Tyler died. But there's a secret she hasn't told anyone-a text Tyler sent, that could have changed everything.
Lex's brother is gone. But Lex is about to discover that a ghost doesn't have to be real to keep you from moving on.
I totally adore Cynthia Hand. I love The Unearthly trilogy so I was excited to read The Last Time We Say Goodbye which is of a different genre than the books I've read of Cynthia's. So, I am curious as to how Cynthia will fare with writing a Realistic Fiction. I wish I can say that I love this book as much as Cynthia's other works but doing so will be lying. It might be that I have read similar depressing books before that have a genius teenage main character that so to happen, be a total bitch. I have encountered main characters that have similar traits before so it is a total letdown to have the same traits for a main character in yet another book.
The story includes a series of flashbacks and it provides us the information needed to fill the holes of what we yet to understand of the story. I enjoy the memories that had to do with Lex's brother, Tyler but not so much about the memories of Lex herself. I feel like I didn't need to know about Lex so much and her memories flashback didn't help in raising the needed emotions and sympathy I might have for her. Lex as I have said, is a genius and she can't help but be a bitch because her extensive knowledge of mathematics helped her to realize that everything insubstantial in this world is insignificant. It was so annoying to read her rant and hatred for "love" because it was just a mix of chemicals and blalala. That can be a discussion for another day.
I've read a LOT of rave reviews about this book so I am feeling quite exasperated to think about what is it that others like about this book so much and how is it that it didn't work for me. It might be due to the fact that I am used to such books so this book didn't present anything new for me to cry on. I did, however, started to feel sad at like a few chapters near the end. I did felt sad but not that much that I have to cry. It was more like "Oh, this is sad" rather than "Oh GOSH, my heart BLEEDS due to this excessive emotional trauma!!!". I am actually concern to this lack of emotion of mine and wondering if I didn't cry for this book because I have a cold heart or is it because of the lack of emotional triggers. By how others are reacting to this book, I might conclude that maybe my emotional response bar were set to "high", thus what was sad for others was not for me.
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| I couldn't even forced myself to cry. :3 |
Despite my lack of emotions, I have to agree that the grieving part of the characters was believable and I did feel for Lex and how she is trying to cope with her brother gone, just like that, there at first and gone the next. It must be hard to imagine a life without someone who was a part of your everyday life and to have them just *poof out of thin air. There's also the impossibility for you to see them again, to touch them and talk to them about everyday trivial things. Now, that makes me sad.
There were two things that triggered more than "just sad" feeling for me. The first was the last text message that Ty messaged to Lex. I was wanting to know what exactly that Ty messaged to Lex and when I finally did know, I felt a stab at my heart. It was such a sad feeling. It was a "what could have been" moment and that never fails to make me feel sad. The second thing that make me feel more than sad was not in the story itself. It was in the acknowledgement. If you have read the book and did read the acknowledgement, you'd know what I mean. When I read the acknowledgement, then I feel a rip in my soul. I was thinking, what I had just read, was a real emotional account. What I read could be real, is real, and it could happened to anyone, did happened to someone and it makes the story all the more realistic. My heart goes out to the author.
Overall, it was a sad read, yeah but it fails to make me cry like how it did to others. If you love to read sad books and happened to have low settings on your emotional bar, then you might enjoy this book.
