Review – The Last Time We Say Goodbye by Cynthia Hand (5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Size: 400 pages
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: February 10, 2015
ISBN-13: 978-0062318473
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: ARC through Amazon Vine
Rating: 5/5 stars

I got a copy of this book to review through the Amazon Vine series. I was a huge fan of Hand’s Unearthly series, so I was eager to see what Hand would write for her first contemporary young adult fiction novel. This was a very tough read but incredibly well written.

This book is about a girl, Lex, whose brother kills himself. She is dealing with the aftermath and trying to understand why he did this. She and her mother are also struggling to figure out how to get on with their lives when everything has suddenly changed so drastically.

I really haven’t read any contemporary fiction about teen suicide before, so keep that in mind (I don’t have a lot to compare this book to). This is a very emotional read; there were parts of the book where I laughed out loud and parts where I cried. The book is very sad, but also ends on a very hopeful note.

The story alternates between what Lex is dealing with on a day to day basis and what she writes in a journal she is keeping at the request of her therapist. The whole story is driving towards Lex’s admission about the events that happened the night of her brother’s suicide.

This book was absolutely impossible to put down, I read the full 400 pages in one night (when I should have been doing things like exercising and sleeping). I just had to know what actually happened to her brother, what led him to commit suicide, and how Lex and her mom were going to move on with their lives.

I loved Lex as a character. She is something of a mathematical genius and she looks at the world a bit differently than most other teens. However, that being said she is dealing with a lot of the same issues. She has a wonderfully geeky and sweet boyfriend that she is struggling to maintain a relationship with because of her brother’s death. She is trying to keep her grades up despite her depression because she wants to go to MIT. Mostly she is struggling with how different everyone treats her because of this one selfish act her brother committed.

Overall this is highly recommended if you like young adult contemporary fiction. The book is just incredibly well written and impossible to put down. You get very involved with the characters and their lives very quickly. Just read it somewhere where you don’t mind crying.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge