Six Goodbyes We Never Said || An ARC review

“But the thing is, Naima Rodriguez has been grieving as long as she can remember, because she’s never gotten over being left in the first place.”

Two teens meet after tragedy and learn about love, loss, and letting go

Naima Rodriguez doesn’t want your patronizing sympathy as she grieves her father, her hero—a fallen Marine. She’ll hate you forever if you ask her to open up and remember him “as he was,” though that’s all her loving family wants her to do in order to manage her complex OCD and GAD. She’d rather everyone back the-eff off while she separates her Lucky Charms marshmallows into six, always six, Ziploc bags, while she avoids friends and people and living the life her father so desperately wanted for her. 

Dew respectfully requests a little more time to process the sudden loss of his parents. It’s causing an avalanche of secret anxieties, so he counts on his trusty voice recorder to convey the things he can’t otherwise say aloud. He could really use a friend to navigate a life swimming with pain and loss and all the lovely moments in between. And then he meets Naima and everything’s changed—just not in the way he, or she, expects. 

Candace Ganger’s Six Goodbyes We Never Said is no love story. If you ask Naima, it’s not even a like story. But it is a story about love and fear and how sometimes you need a little help to be brave enough to say goodbye

First things first I loved the cover of this book so much, it was the first thing that pulled me in. The bright red with the contrast of the little airplanes flying around above Naima is just so beautiful.

This book for me was good when it was focused on Naima. I could see myself in her and could understand her actions and why she did what she did. I could understand her strained relationship with her stepmother and her grief at losing her father, especially as we got further into the book. I loved her relationship with her grandparents and how we were shown her relationship with her dad through emails.

The one thing that really dropped my rating on this book was Dew in general. I thought he was sort of stalker-ish. Once he gets his recorder, I agreed with Naima, he was being so creepy. Even if he wasn’t recording anyone, the thought of him talking about them in front of them into his recorder made me so comfortable. He also overstepped a lot of boundaries trying to “help” and didn’t seem to understand why it wasn’t wanted. I didn’t see how they could relate other than that they had parents who died so I didn’t understand their friendship either.

All in all, I was disappointed in this book even though I was looking forward to it.

Have you heard of this book? Do you think you will give it a chance? Let me know!