Review by New York Times Review
THIS REVIEW COMES with a disclaimer: The subject is radioactively sad. There are no silver linings or surprise resurrections in either of these devastating novels in which teenagers take their own lives. Even if you think you have a high tolerance for gut-wrenching fiction, the tragedy may knock you flat. Still, reading "The Last Time We Say Goodbye" feels like exploring a forest after it's been decimated by wildfire. You will see new shoots sprouting where you least expect them. Our guide through the post-suicide wreckage in Raymond, Neb. (population 179), is 18-year-old Alexis Riggs, whose younger brother, Tyler, has been dead for seven weeks. She's a plain-spoken math whiz with no patience for euphemism: "God, I hate that pause, while the person speaking searches for the most watered down way to say died. . . . I'm determined to be straight about it. My brother killed himself. In our garage. With a hunting rifle. This makes it sound like the most morbid game of Clue ever, but there it is." While begrudgingly journaling for a therapist, Lex distances herself from well-intentioned friends and dumps a thoughtful, self-aware boyfriend of the sort in short supply in actual high schools. He's the only weak link in Cynthia Hand's brave book, which is a departure from her Unearthly series. To begin with, there are no angels; according to an author's note, it's based on events that happened in Hand's family. Perhaps this is why the story gathers its strongest momentum on the home front. There isn't a lot of time for Lex's own heartbreak, whipsawed as she is between resentment of her AWOL father and concern for her mother. We see her after Ty's first suicide attempt two years earlier, emptying bullets from her dad's left-behind guns and then sealing them in a box labeled "Romance Novels." The moment is heartbreaking; and of course, Lex is haunted by the bullets she failed to hide. Despite the finality of Ty's absence - or maybe because of it - Lex continues to struggle with questions. Why does she still smell his cologne? What should she do with the letter he left in his bedroom for a girl named Ashley? Why are certain family pictures missing? "I Was Here" also hinges on a survivor's search for answers and struggle to envision the future. In Gayle Forman's latest irresistible tear-jerker, the survivor is Cody Reynolds, a house cleaner and first-year community college student, whose best friend, Meg Garcia, recently drank a bottle of poison and died alone in a Tacoma motel room. Meg was an academic superstar and golden girl who gave no indication that she was contemplating suicide - yet her death was meticulously orchestrated, down to the time-delayed emails delivered to her parents and Cody. Cody is (understandably) livid at Meg for the ice-water shock of her absence and for landing Cody on the eulogy circuit at so many stultifying memorial services. She says of her friend: "It was bad enough she had to die. On purpose. But for subjecting me to all this, I could kill her." Suffocated by sympathy, Cody takes the chance to leave town when the Garcias ask her to pack up Meg's college room. What she finds there sends her on a topsy-turvy post-mortem trip through the world her friend built without her. (It includes a guy who is a gem in jerk's clothing. P.S.A. for teenagers: In real life, jerks don't change.) As she gets to know Meg's posse and scrutinizes Meg's final, perplexing decisions, Cody is determined to hunt down the piece of information she believes will complete the puzzle of her friend's suicide. Of course, that single fact doesn't exist. The satisfaction comes from watching Cody rebuild her life despite the bottomless guilt and uncertainty. Her quest for peace, like Lex's, elevates a potentially lugubrious story to a place of humor and grace. Forman and Hand spin heartbreak into mysteries that remain realistically, uncomfortably unsolved. Readers requiring total resolution may want to steer clear. But braver souls, teenagers and adults alike, will be rewarded for heeding Lady Macbeth's advice, echoed in a chilling context by Forman: "Screw your courage to the sticking place." The payoff may not be particularly sweet in either book, but it is hard-earned and life affirming, which is infinitely more rewarding. ELISABETH EGAN'S debut novel, "A Window Opens," will be published in the summer.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [February 1, 2015]
Review by Booklist Review
Eighteen-year-old Cody's best friend, Meg, has committed suicide, and Cody is determined to discover why and how it could be that she didn't sense what Meg was contemplating. As she begins her investigation, she meets a young musician, Ben, with whom Meg was obsessed but who rejected her. How responsible might he have been for Meg's death? How will Cody deal with his growing presence in her own life? And what is the meaning of the strange, encrypted message she discovers on Meg's computer? At first Cody finds more questions than answers, but she is dogged in her pursuit of knowledge and gradually comes ever closer to the startling truth. Suicide has always been a subject in YA literature, and to her credit, Forman handles it sensitively and gracefully, raising important issues of the ethics and morality of the subject. The combination mystery and love story is sure to reach a wide readership and excite essential discussion. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: With the big-budget film adaptation of Forman's best-seller If I Stay (2009) still lingering in theaters, this latest offering should generate massive teen interest.--Cart, Michael Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
As she did in If I Stay, Forman offers an introspective examination of the line between life and death, and the courage it takes to persist. College freshman Meg's suicide shocks no one more than her best friend Cody. To make Meg's death even more unsettling, the last six months of her emails are missing from her computer. Certain that an outsider-a correspondent of Meg's-pushed her to take her own life, Cody embarks on a quest to identify the culprit. Her journey proves both enlightening and dangerous as she traces the steps Meg took during her last weeks of life. As the pieces of a disturbing puzzle start to fit together, Cody takes an enormous risk to come to terms with Meg's final decision and her own guilt. Beyond exploring Cody's grief, this psychologically incisive book delves into her complex relationships with Tricia, her single mother; Meg's more conventional family; and, most profoundly, the boy who stole and wounded Meg's heart shortly before her death. Ages 14-up. Agent: Michael Bourret, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. (Jan.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-Cody and Meg have been inseparable since childhood. They planned to leave their small town in Washington and move to Seattle to go to college, but that changed when Meg got a full scholarship to a small, prestigious private college in Tacoma, WA. Having no scholarships or money saved, Cody is now stuck in town, cleaning houses to have a little bit of money to give to her mom toward living expenses and to take a couple classes at the local community college. Those classes have gone by the wayside, though, since news came of Meg's suicide. Meticulously planned, her former best friend ordered a poison that had a high fatality rate, and sent emails to friends and family on a timed delay so that no one could interfere with her fatal decision. Cody struggles to figure out why Meg took her own life and puzzles over a suspicious line in her friend's suicide email. The distraught but determined teen begins to encrypt files on Meg's laptop, which lead her to a suicide support group and posts from All_BS, a Pied Piper-type character who encourages suicide as a way out. As she goes further down the rabbit hole, Cody comes to the realization that she needs to forgive Meg, and, more importantly, herself. Reminiscent of Nina LaCour's Hold Still (Dutton, 2009), Anna Jarzab's All Unquiet Things (Delacorte, 2010), and Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why (Penguin, 2007), teens will clamor for this latest offering from the author of If I Stay (Dutton, 2009). Have multiple copies in your collection.-Suanne B. Roush, formerly at Osceola High School, Seminole, FL (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Cody and her best friend Meg had plans to move to Seattle after high school, where they would eat in dives, listen to up-and-coming bands, and live lives very different from their current small-town existences. But when Meg instead goes away to college, leaving Cody behind, their friendship begins to strain. Then Cody receives an email from Meg stating that she has made the decision to take her own life. What follows is Codys painful journey to understand her friends final decision. Formans well-paced tearjerker paints a compelling picture of loss, betrayal, and fear. Narrator Maries melancholy yet ardent portrayal moves the reading experience from painful to downright depressing -- listeners are pulled into the story through the intensity of emotion and constantly reminded of the pain by the mournful tone. Though bleak, it is a compelling listen. sin gaetano (c) Copyright 2015. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Part tautly paced mystery, part psychological study of suicide and its aftereffects. When Cody's best friend, Meg, kills herself by downing cleaning fluid in a motel room, she tidily leaves behind a tip for the maid and time-delayed emails for Cody, her parents and the police. Cody's devastated: After all, she and Meg were inseparable since kindergarten. That is, they were close until talented Meg escaped their dead-end town to attend college on a fellowship while Cody stayed behind. But when Cody travels to Meg's college town to pack up what's left of Meg's life, she's startled by how much doesn't make sense: Why would someone so full of promise and life choose death? How much did Meg's housemates know about her fateful decision? And why does Meg have an encrypted file on her computer? Seeking to justify the picture of the friend she thought she knew with the one she's piecing together, Cody faces questions about their friendship, along with a growing attraction for Ben, the boy she believes broke Meg's heart. Forman's characters are all too human: Cody's willingness to ignore what doesn't fit her picture of Meg as she struggles to come to terms with her sadness and guilt rings true of those left behind to face the tragedy of suicide. An engrossing and provocative look at the devastating finality of suicide, survivor's guilt, the complicated nature of responsibility and even the role of the Internet in life-and-death decisions. (Fiction. 14 up) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
