Six Goodbyes We Never Said
By Candace Ganger
3 stars
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All of the opinions are my own and this did not affect my review in any way.
I have been putting off reading this book for a while because in all honesty I was no longer very interested in the topics it dealt with. Currently I have been reading a lot of books that deal with grief so I think that is why I had a hard time with this book, because honestly, compared to other books about grief this unfortunately felt a little short.
In Six Goodbyes We Never said we follow Naima Rodriguez who doesn’t want patronizing sympathy as she grieves over the death of her father. We also follow Dew who just needs a little more time to process the loss of his parents. Naima and Dew meet and everything changes, not in the way anyone expects.
Like I said I was a little disappointed by this book, the idea was fantastic, two people suffering coming together to deal with their own grief, however the execution was a bit disappointing. My first complaint has to be the pace of the book, the beginning of the book is slow, very slow, we get extremely unnecessary details about things that don’t matter in the end. When Dew and Naima meet is so anticlimactic it was painful to watch and finally by the end everything happened so fast it made no sense how fast the characters changed (especially if the author spent almost most of the book detailing how flawed they were).
Now talking about the characters, for me the main two characters are 50/50 (I love Dew and I didn’t like Naima at all). First of all, Naima, oh god it was painful to read, I’m sorry but I had no sympathy for her at all, I get where she is coming from but it was so frustrating to see someone refuse to get help, sorry but no. Dew on the other hand has my heart forever and ever, I felt all the sympathy in the world for him he is a flawed human being that wants to get better and for me that is everything. Dew is kind, sweet and very wholesome and it was a joy getting to know him. The secondary characters are honestly what saved this book for me, Dew´s sister is so funny and his parents are the best.
Finally the plot, honestly there was no plot in this book, they are flawed human being, they meet, they are a little less flawed human being the end. This book is not perfect but that doesn’t mean it is not especial, I am sure that a lot of people will feel seen and represented and for that I have to give it prompts.
Honestly this book is a solid 3 star read, I had my problems with it but that doesn’t mean it was a bad book. I would recommend this book if you have a family member in the army or are grieving.
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