Summer '17 Book 21

Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner

I bought this earlier this summer because my school librarians posted to Twitter that this was a good book. They have yet to steer me wrong, so I got myself a copy. So glad I did, even though there was some messy, snotty crying that went along with it.

Carver, aka Blade to his friends, has just lost his three best friends in a texting and driving accident. To make matters worse, Carver was the last person to text the driver, so he feels he is responsible for their deaths. Some others do too, and at one point, the district attorney looks into whether charges can be filed for negligent homicide. That's a lot to handle all at one time. And while all of this is important, it's not the whole premise of the book.

No, this book is about Carver saying goodbye to his friends, and find a little bit of closure so that he can move on. The idea of the goodbye days is presented to him by Nana Betsy, his friend Blake's grandmother. Because he was taken so suddenly, she didn't get to say what she needed to say, so she asks Carver if he would spend the day reminiscing about Blake with her. They did the things Blake would do with Nana Betsy, and she got to say what she needed to in order to gain some closure.

Then, Carver goes to have a goodbye day with Eli's parents. Eli had a twin sister, who thinks Carver should be held accountable for his death. Also, Carver has become good friends with Eli's girlfriend, Jesmyn, which does not sit well with Eli's dad.

The last goodbye day is with Mars' father, the judge who wanted charges brought against Carver. He didn't seem to understand that the goodbye day was to let the judge into aspects of his son's life that he didn't know about. It took some time for the judge to understand, and I do think he found some closure.

All of this was hard for Carver. He even had panic attacks and started to see a shrink. It was aggravating to me that people wanted to prosecute Carver for texting his friends. Yes, he texted them. Yes, he probably knew they'd be driving. The thing is though, no one villified the driver, Mars, for responding to the text while he was driving. That was a problem for me.

On the whole, I loved this book. I look forward to reading more from this author.