Category Archives: Fiction

The first thing I did after finishing Goodbye Days at 5am was plot how to connect with Jeffrey Zentner so that we can arrange a school visit for next year. Yes, Goodbye Days was that good. And after staying up past my bedtime months ago to read The Serpent King, it was apparent that Zentner is a skilled author that focuses his creativity on character-driven novels that speak to readers on a deeper level. This is the case with his newest, Goodbye Days where Carver feels like he has blood on his hands after texting his friends as they drove in a car, knowing that they’d likely text back while driving said car, and were killed when they crashed with a half-written text in the queue of the phone. In an instant, Carver lost his three best friends, the Sauce Crew.

Memorable character: The way Zentner fleshes out each of the deceased characters in flashbacks and the titled “goodbye days” that happen makes each an essential character, even in the afterlife. And while Carver is the main character, Blake’s grandmother has to be the most memorable. Blake, one of the friends in the car, was being raised by his grandmother who moved him from his dysfunctional home to raise him where they could go “bad fishing” and watch movies, garden and chow down at a local restaurant on the weekend. Her sadness is palpable and she has the outlandish idea to have a goodbye day, a day she couldn’t have with Blake. Using Carver to share the details that only he knew, while she shared with Carver the things he didn’t know about his friend, they could both say goodbye. But it’s when readers discover something that wasn’t foreshadowed and a very real conversation occurs that tears run. And that leads to one of my favorite quotes in the book.

Memorable quote: “Funny how people move through this world leaving little pieces of their story with the people they meet, for them to carry. Makes you wonder what’d happen if all those people put their puzzle pieces together.” Isn’t that a wonderful thought to have? What pieces does each person who knows you hold and how would that puzzle look all put together? It’s these precise tidbits in this book and his first that are endearing.

Memorable scene: Just like many of scenes that come together to create the book there are too many to really pick a favorite, but one of the most memorable was certainly when Carver shows up at Thurgood nee Mars’ home where he lived with his father, whose position as a judge makes Carver sweat. He knew this goodbye day was going to be very different from the others. And that moment when he asks Carver to leave the bowl on the counter… oh, you just wait until you get to it!

The book is one feel after another: swirling and circulating around with an electricity in the writing and characters. It’s important and sends a message, but it’s also about the bond of friendship. Expectations. Who we are. Almost too much to explore in one book, yet Zentner masterfully flashes back to capture it all while following Carver’s journey in the present. A must-read.

In my immediate review on Goodreads, I spouted about the manic pixie dream girl that goes so wrong for me in many YA books, yet this one be it Sutherland’s writing or the slow-peel of the layers of this onion make it sweet with a pang of heartbreak. I am not a lover of happy endings and this one did not disappoint: it was complete, real, and not hopeless either.

Memorable character: I want to highlight Henry Page, not Grace Town as the most memorable character, if in part because he is the narrator but that his self-awareness is wise and yet still impulsive and questioning. He gets his heart broken by his parents and Grace Town and several others along the way, but he keeps moving forward and that strength I respect. I can also empathize with his explanation of why he can’t put into words answer to some of Grace’s questions,”Exactly, I’m a writer. I could go home and write you an essay on why I’ve never had a girlfriend, and it would be awesome. But I… kinda suck at telling stories when they’re not on paper.” Me too, Henry Page. Me too.

Memorable scene: There are two distinct scenes that Sutherland’s words capture the essence of the emotions felt in that moment. The first is as Henry is trying to figure out just who Grace is and begins with the very 21st century Facebook stalk and he shares “… feeling a strange, unfamiliar pang of excitement at the sight of her. There was something deeply confusing about looking at Grace, like that feeling you get when you see a colorized photograph of the Civil War or the Great Depression and realize for the first time that the people in them were real. Except it was reversed, because I’d seen the colorized Grace on Facebook, and here was the sepia version- the hard-to-grasp version- ghostlike and ashen in front of me.” I get it Sutherland, oh how you’ve described it perfectly. And then as Henry happens upon Grace after an all-out search for her in town, worried about what she might do and he finds her in “the spot.” “Grace turned to face me. Although there was no light except from the moon, I could see trails of tears falling down her face… I slowed for a moment, sure that I was dreaming, because she looked like something out of a myth… Here was Ophelia, in the flesh.” And I got the picture. Again, Sutherland’s words touch the reader deeply. There nothing to say other than to quote her own words.

Memorable quote: So you can imagine that in trying to add just one quote to sum up the story, that there are many as I’ve already shared above. But there is one more, one more that might give a little bit too much away for the reader who hasn’t read Our Chemical Hearts yet, so I’ll share that you must skip this quote and return to compare notes once you have read it and tell me whether you agree. And here it is: “People are perfect when all that’s left of them is a memory. You’re never gonna measure up to a dead dude.”

Henry is a sympathetic narrator who just wants to love an imperfect girl, the manic pixie dream girl, yet this one is just a little different. With a dose of gorgeous writing, a fully-realized cast of characters, and a well-paced story I advise that copies be purchased and distributed ASAP along with Pablo Neruda’s poetry, which I adore and puts the cherry on top.