Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“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.”- Goodbye Days, Jeff Zentner

What if you could spend one last day with someone you lost?

One day Carver Briggs had it all—three best friends, a supportive family, and a reputation as a talented writer at his high school, Nashville Academy for the Arts.

The next day he lost it all when he sent a simple text to his friend Mars, right before Mars, Eli, and Blake were killed in a car crash.

Now Carver can’t stop blaming himself for the accident, and he’s not the only one. Eli’s twin sister is trying to freeze him out of school with her death-ray stare. And Mars’s father, a powerful judge, is pressuring the district attorney to open a criminal investigation into Carver’s actions.

Luckily, Carver has some unexpected allies: Eli’s girlfriend, the only person to stand by him at school; Dr. Mendez, his new therapist; and Blake’s grandmother, who asks Carver to spend a Goodbye Day with her to share their memories and say a proper goodbye to his friend.

Soon the other families are asking for a Goodbye Day with Carver, but he’s unsure of their motives. Will they all be able to make peace with their losses, or will these Goodbye Days bring Carver one step closer to a complete breakdown or—even worse—prison?

This is a fine book. Getting that out of the way right now because the more I talk about it the more I may convince you that I really didn't like it, when I did. It wasn't my favorite book ever, but it was enjoyable enough. 

I kept forgetting that it was written by Jeff Zentner, especially since this is basically a long Adam Silvera book. The characters, the writing style, all very Adam Silvera-y. I like Adam Silvera, don't get me wrong, but he's not my favorite YA contemporary writer and his books are typically on the younger side of YA. Still, better him than Becky Albertalli or John Green. 

Plotwise, the book reminds me a ton of The Lies About Truth, what with the car accident and the main character blaming himself for the death of his friends like how Sadie blamed herself for the death of Trent, as well as similar musings about God and forgiveness. Which I liked, especially given that The Lies About Truth was one of my favorite books of last year.

My biggest issue with Goodbye Days is the amount of cringe that it's in the book, mostly surrounding Jessmyn and Carver. I had such a hard time with their parts because, well, they reminded me of that Diversity Day episode of The Office that was basically unwatchable to me because I dislike that particular brand of cringe comedy. I also felt strange about the way Zentner introduced diversity to the story, like he had to get that out of the way before he could start to flesh out his characters. The first time we meet Jessmyn, she comments about her "Filipino genes", which struck me as a very odd thing to say to someone. And in casual conversation she keeps bringing up the fact that she's Asian, usually in really awkward places and, frankly, every time she showed up in a chapter or whatever I went into skim mode because their conversations made me super uncomfortable. I also thought Georgia's interactions in the beginning with Dr Mendez were really awkward because she is only there to inform us of his husband and children, the whole conversation coming across as when Barney from How I Met Your Mother introduced his brother James as being his gay black brother, though not nearly as enjoyably awkward as that scene. 

Also, the writing was pretty inconsistent. I loved the way certain parts were written, usually the sentences right before the chapter ends and Zentner tries to channel Cormac McCarthy, with short, beautiful sentences that hit hard. The rest of the book was okay, but very much a YA novel with teenspeak and lots of often gratuitous swearing. The really pretty parts felt like a tease, because if that's how he can write why doesn't he write the entire book like that? Because, take away those parts, and you have a book that could have been written by any of the recent YA hit writers, from Nicola Yoon to Becky Albertalli to Adam Silvera.

I also wish we got some of Carver's writing, because apparently he writes a lot of "dark Southern stuff." But then I'd probably wish that Zentner just wrote a Southern Gothic novel because if there's any literary movement that needs a revival, it's that one. Get your Faulkner on, dude!

Happily, Goodbye Days isn't as anvilicious, to borrow a TV Tropes term, as I thought it would be. It's actually more of a subtle take on texting and driving as I thought it would be, even if I did think it was kind of a stretch to go the potential prosecution route for Carver, especially when it didn't go anywhere. I also took issue with the comparing of the case to the one of the girl who convinced her best friend to kill himself, because it's like comparing apples to oranges. Carver didn't know that his text would cause a car accident, whereas that girl sure as hell knew her texts would cause that kid to kill himself (and who the fuck does, anyway?). 

I also did like some of the characters. I liked Carver and the rest of the... Sauce Crew... just fine, but my two favorite characters besides them were Nana Betsy and, surprisingly, Judge Edwards. Both the pain shown by those characters was done very well, contrasted with Eli's family who wasn't all that well developed. It would have been nice for Adair or Eli's parents to get that same moment of redemption even Judge Edwards got in the end.

The ending was also really nice, and even brought a few tears misting the edges of my eyes. The ending made the book, really.

So, I did enjoy it. It's not my favorite book I've ever read, not even among the best YA I read this year. It's a solid contemporary, just not that original and kind of replaceable. I don't know if I'll ever read The Serpent King, but I'm happy with having read this book, even if I never read anything else by Jeff Zentner. Of course, if he ever gets bored with this YA contemporary stuff and decides to become the Carlos Ruiz Zafon of Southern Gothic, I will be all over that.

7.5-8 out of 10