What Happened to Goodbye

Source:  E-Book

Publisher:  Penguin Young Readers Group

Age Group: 12 above

Genre: Young Adult Contemporary/ Stand Alone Novel

Pages: 402

It took me around three hours reading this book. In the end, was I satisfied? No, not really. I cant see the difference between Dessen’s older works and this.

What Happened to Goodbye By Sarah Dessen:

Each new city means a new persona for McLean. Ever since her mom left her dad for a basketball coach Mclean and her dad have been traveling as a restaurant consultant. When they stop at lakeview, everything around McLean seems to change. She becomes friends with Deb, Opal and Heather and most of all with her neighbor Dave. For the first time in her life, McClean becomes herself not some actress or a girl called Liz. She has a sudden desire to live in Lakeview forever and live a normal life.

Writing Style:

Girl is having problems either socially, in school or in her family. She has to solve it, and did well obviously its Sarrah Dessen so there has to be some hot guy with curly hair in it too.

What makes What Happened to Goodbye so different then Just Listen, The Truth about Forever, Along for the ride, Keeping the Moon? Truthfully the answer is nothing. In Just Listen, Annabel was having social issues with her friends, her sister was anorexic and she had a terrible secret she could tell not one. In Along for the ride, it was the same Auden didn’t make friends easily she was too mature and family wise her dad had left her mom for some other women called Heidi. Keeping The Moon was the same, mom is weird, the girl get even weirder and did I mention friendless?  I can go about describing all Sarrah’s novels, but you might have guessed already. So, all in all there is no point in my ranting.

Sarrah Dessen is not what we call a Maureen Johnson in the YA world. I can write like her if I try, though I believe writing is a skill only acquired when practiced. She has the skill, that everyone has within there inner secret self. She uses easy words, phrases and sentences rarely using literary devices so that teens will easily read and can relate easily. That is why I am not going to complain about her writing because Sarah Dessen doesnt write for the sake of writing, she writes so that teenagers can relate to her characters and learn something from them.

What Happened to Goodbye, we saw the usual. Important themes (that also occur frequently in Dessen novels) like dealing with loss, change, solving problems, maintaining friendship and family relationships are also present. McLean has enough problems with her mother who cheated on her dad, it is that loss that makes her vulnerable, she decides to change her self in every place she goes but when she finally does settle down she realizes that friendship is equally important to family and she cannot loose her new friends like the way she lost her family. Which leads us to another theme, rather the most important one self realization or self discovery.

My Opinion:

I was so anxious to read this book and it was my top priority to read it this year. If you follow my blogs regularly I think I have mentioned my distress in not getting it soon enough. I am making this review late, because I know if I had written it before I would have said it was good. But after waiting long enough, I realize (which I knew that I would) that it was not worth it, the wait, that is.

This book captured me from the start to the end even though I knew what was going to happen, the book was so predictable. I couldn’t let go of it. Besides the same type of writing and story I really enjoyed the fact that Dessen made McLean more realistic then her other characters though the situation in which McLean was quite unrealistic. Mclean had her set of friends and she also had Dave, who proved quite worthy of a companion and gave humor into the story. I read Sarah Dessen for the pure sake of fun but it will not disappoint her fans at all that I am sure of, but from my side I would like to read something of Sarrah Dessen that is original and not like her other nine best sellers that are pretty much more or a less the same.

Also, those who are willing to be first time Sarah Dessen readers should try to read The Truth about forever first. I wouldn't really recommend What happened to goodbye.

  

I would recommend it to a person who hasn’t read much of literature, is a girl, enjoys reading chick-lits and likes a fast read. 

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The Bookish Life Downhill

The bookish life hasn't been reading lately as much as it used to and there are several reasons for it:

1.      Sanskriti Bist has left her school, it is not supposed to effect her reading but in a unique way, for no particular reason it is.

2.      After leaving the school Sanskriti Bist went directly to her Grandma’s place. Unfortunately the only books they had was Who Moved My Cheese and The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari (the main cause of my no-reading)

3.      Sanskriti Bist is listening to Panic! At The Disco excessively (while typing this her mind is playing “Mona Lisa pleased to please ya”) and she also recommends to everyone to listen to all there albums, A fever You Cant Sweat Out, Pretty Odd and Vices and Virtues cause they are really amazing!

4.      Sanskriti Bist is currently reading too many books, she does not no what to read first.

5.      Sanskriti Bist’s nail cracked last week, she is feeling a lot of things all together at once.

6.      The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson and What Happened to Good Bye by Sarah Dessen has released and she still hasn’t got them.

7.      All in all Sanskriti Bist is really depressed and misses her friends A LOT.

To reduce my depressed state, I have formulated a plan to keep posting about my friends and there favorite books or the books that we have shared together.

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My Classic History

Sarah Dessen is one of the

popular Young Adult 

novelist of all times.  

Seeing my other blog’s you might have thought that  I’m not the one for classics judging that I am a young adult or in terms of speaking a teenager and that, my genre has mostly everything aside classics. Of course you might consider that I am not alone in this deprived state most teenagers my age prefer to read Young Adult romances like Sarah Dessen’s for girls and Percy Jackson for the boys (not that I don’t read both). You rarely see an adolescent sitting in a bus reading classics, do you? I observed that way back and set up a resolution. I had to read classics whether I enjoy it or not.

My hate for classics started when I was ten years old. I read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I hated it more then ever thought I had only read  eleven pages and threw it away. I declared that is was the worst book ever, too boring with too much detail. End of story and there I was skipping on my way to the library to issue Harry Potter.

A year later I thought of picking up The Hobbit by JRR Tolkein, the cover looked a little dull green hills a river, I tried it anyway. When I look back, I remember vaguely that I had read Eldest by Christopher Paoini that year. I had fallen in love with the idea of elves and dwarfs and especially beautiful dragons, I am still intrigued with it no doubt, but that is exactly why I loved the hobbit and mostly Bilbo Baggins quest and all the obstacles he crossed. As soon as I finished reading it I picked up Lord of the Rings. 11 year old little Sanskriti to read Lord of the Rings, the greatest written novel of all time-all by herself. Ouch! That sound’s harsh. I read half of the fellowship of the ring again declaring my all time now favorite classic as stupid and shelved it in my mind as: "To-Read-Only-If-Willing-To-Have-A-Sore-Head-Or-Go-Insane."

The Voyage of the dawn Trader 

by CS Lewis is considered the

best children literature ever. Even 

so, I've never been able to finish 

this book.  

There were rare classics that I did like. Like Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan or The Wizard Of Oz, the main reasons were because it was short and of course children literature. But even in Children Literature I hated the Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis, I remember being in 4^th grade trying to issues the Voyage of the Dawn Trader again for the 4^th time. I never finished it although, I tried many times but happily gave up as soon as the four siblings went through the painting that is to say in short the 7^th or 8^th page. The thought of the four children going through the painting was supposed to be exiting and surely I had to be curious. It was quite the contradictory for me it was plain dull and immensely tedious.

I have this tendency of throwing away good books as soon as the exiting bit comes up. There are many instances, For example:

Sanskriti’s Age (in years)	Book’s Name	Left the book Exactly When
7	Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone- JK Rowling	Harry meets Voldemort and discovers Professor Quirrell’s has been hiding Lord Voldermort at the back of his head.
9	The Voyage Of the dawn Trader –CS Lewis	The four siblings are sucked in to Narnia by a painting.
11	Lord of the Rings- JRR Tolkein	Frodo and gang meet with Aaragon

There are a hundred others if I think very closely. I left these books and came back to them sooner or later (except Voyage of the Dawn Trader but this time I read ¾  of the book and left it again.)

Here I am now having read more then enough of classics for my age even if my age group does not read classics. I’ve read HG Wells, Sir Athur Conan Doyle, many shorts stories by Guy de Maupassant, Chinua Achebe, Henrik Isben, Johnathan Swift, Bram Stoker, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller,  Emily Brontë, Charlotte Brontë and yes everyone has read Shakespeare.

That is not even ¼ of the brilliant classic authors that have prevailed in this world young Twilight and Harry Potter fans, there is a world out there filled with classics, the ladies are swishing their robes impatiently, the men are scratching there long beards. There waiting for YOU, the same way Pride and Prejudice is for me. 

* Sorry about not blogging for a month. To read further excuses please do check out the NOTICE BOARD which is on the left column. 

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