Book: The Last Time We Say Goodbye by Cynthia Hand

Published February 2015 by HarperCollins|305 pages

Where I Got It: I own the e-book

Series: None

Genre: YA Contemporary

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’ve wanted to read this one ever since I found out Cynthia Hand had a new book coming out!  I really liked it, but not as much as I thought I would, especially in comparison to Hand’s Unearthly series. But I still really liked it!

I really felt for Lex, and we really see, through journal entries and her life after, what it was like for her to lose her brother.  It’s interesting that we don’t know a lot about Ty, and he is very much a mystery…yet we can still feel his loss.  It’s simple and quiet, but still heartbreaking.  Not as much as I would have liked, but it was was still there. It is an emotional book, but for me, it wasn’t emotional until the end of the book, when I was trying not to ugly-cry during lunch.  I don’t know if it was that, or if it’s the end-of-summer reading blahs or if it just didn’t measure up to the expectations I had as for as the crying goes, but I sort of wish that I had been more emotional throughout the book.

It’s still a beautiful story, and Hand did a fantastic job with it.

I really liked Lexie, who’s smart, is going to MIT and loves math!  I, personally, am not a math person, but I love that Lexie loves math.  It still seemed more authentic and real than a lot of other books I’ve read dealing with the same issues.  Those still felt real but this one had a realness that the other ones didn’t.  There is an author’s note at the end, where Hand talks about losing a brother, so it definitely came from the heart.  It really shows in this book, and I really appreciate that.

4 stars.  Like I said, I really liked the honesty and realness in this book, and while I didn’t love it the way I expected to (or cry as much as I thought), it is beautiful and heartbreaking and a book I recommend to everyone.