I adore everything Jeff writes and have been eagerly following his career over the years. This was one of my favourite reads of 2017 (apologies for the late feedback, life the last few years has been insane and I ended up getting a wee bit behind on my net galley feedback!)

Heard really good things about this book and it was certainly emotionally devastating but honestly it just wasn’t a comfortable read for me at all!

DNF. I couldn't connect with this book at all and found it really hard to get into. I had high hopes for this, which is a shame.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to read and review this book.

After losing and replacing my broken Kindle and getting a new phone I was unable to download the title again for review as it was no longer available on Netgalley.

I’m really sorry about this and hope that it won’t affect you allowing me to read and review your titles in the future.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
Natalie.

Carver is trying to come to terms with the death of his three best friends but he blames himself for the car accident that took their lives. We find out early on that, that it was him that sent a text to the driver Mars and it is believed by everyone around him that this caused the crash.

I was really impressed by this book, the emotional writing , plot and the memorable characters. One particular character that I really liked is Dr Mendez a therapist that tries to help Carver with his panic attacks. I cried many times, I think it was only when I was 10% in the book my eyes started watering up. And that shows what a brilliant writer Jeff is.

This book portrays what grief mixed with guilt can be like and what it does to a young person. How a person can get closure when there seems like no hope even when the people around you hate you as much as you hate yourself.

Emotionally this book did a lot to me (stayed up late night et cetera) but most importantly it taught me a few things and gives me hope. So thank you for that Jeff Zentner. Fans of all the bright places will really like this in fact even those who didn't like the book will absolutely love this one.

"For the most part, you don't hold the people you love, in your heart because they rescued you from drowning or pulled you out of a burning house. Mostly you hold them in your heart because they save you in a million quiet in perfect ways from being alone"

I don’t know if this is a thing for everyone, or if it’s unique to me but sometimes there’s a book on my TBR that I think sounds really good but that somehow takes me forever to read. My bookshelves are pretty physical proof of this very phenomenon, so full are they of the unread amazing-sounding stories.

I find myself so tiresome. STOP BEING TEMPTED BY THE SHINY NEW BOOKS AND READ WHAT YOU HAVE ALREADY.

This is what happened with Jeff Zentner. I’ve had The Serpent King for AGES and then I got an arc of Goodbye Days and actually really wanted to read it. And then didn’t read it. And then I was flicking through my arc folder on my Kindle and felt bad because IT WAS PUBLISHED OVER A YEAR AGO AND THAT IS SHOCKING.

So I read it.

And got angry with myself because I really liked it.

Here’s the deal: any book that deals with loss is a book that is probably going to appeal to me because it will make me think and it will make me feel and it will have that level of relatability to it you know? Books about loss and about grief are a little bit like picking a scab. & you know, let’s not be all woe is me because I’m cool now and I mostly dealt with all my grief stuff a long time ago but I still went through some stuff and so I find it interesting to explore that sometimes in what I’m reading. Does that make sense?

So this book was always going to be right up my street. A YA contemporary about dealing with loss? Yes please.

It’s about this teenage boy, Carver, who sends a text to his three best friends asking where they are and when they’re coming to pick him up. The friend that replies, replies whilst he’s driving, hits a truck and all three of them are killed.

I know. Talk about sucker punch.

So Carver’s left and he’s this mess of emotions. He’s got to deal with losing his best friends, he has massive survivors guilt, he has a weird relationship with his parents, there’s a girl, basically there’s a lot going on and it’s intense.

Not all the time – there are flashback scenes to the friendship of these 4 boys that are lovely and light and much needed otherwise this book would drag you down – but this book is not a walk in the park.
I liked that. It doesn’t shy away from the message it carries, and you know what I really felt like that was important especially given that we live in a world where everybody lives on their mobile phones; we have this sense of immediacy about us because the world is at our fingertips you know? Your phone bleeps and you feel like you need to address that right now but actually you don’t. Things can wait. And sometimes if you don’t wait people die and THAT IS A FACT.
People die because other people text and drive. In the UK texting whilst driving has overtaken drink driving as a leading cause for adolescent death. Texting whilst driving lowers your reaction time by 35% which is the same as being three times over the alcohol limit. THREE TIMES OVER THE LIMIT. That makes this book important, and important because it deals with what it’s like to be the person left behind and in some ways that hits harder than a story focussing on the one who died.

It deals really well with what it’s like to be grieving the people you loved the most and it has really excellent mental health rep – Carver is depressed and has panic attacks and he goes to therapy and that whole thing is really well done.

It’s also interesting to me because most of the YA I read focusses on female friendship groups and I liked that this wasn’t. It was interesting to get to see the way these 4 boys worked together, the strength of their bond, the conversations they have: I liked it.

There were things that bugged me – there’s a fairly major plotline that I don’t want to spoil that just baffled me and annoyed me the whole way through: I was just like ‘wait, what’ the whole time, and sometimes Carver’s voice didn’t ring true as in sometimes he was wise beyond his years and coming out with this really profound stuff and then at other times he seemed more like an 11 year old than someone at 16/17 so that niggled a little bit.

Overall though, I flew through this book and I think it’s worth a read. I think it’s an important read, actually. I’ve also bumped The Serpent King up my TBR which should tell you something.

Goodbye Days is such an emotional, tear-jerker novel. It opens to a heartbreaking start with Carver losing his three best friends and from then we followed his journey in dealing with not only his grief but also with the guilt he carries. How can he ever move on from his loss knowing that he might have something to do with his friends’ death? And that immediately made me think what to feel towards Carver. Sympathy or displeasure? But it was so hard not to sympathize with someone who showed so much remorse for what he’d done and as the story progress, I find myself liking his character. His narrative is weighted with a lot of emotions and he made it so easy to connect with him. I feel his pain and his fears and the same goes for the other characters. They all felt very real and their emotions are palpable to me. Also, I love Carver’s relationship with his family. They are all very supportive especially his older sister.

I also like the idea of “Goodbye Day” and how different each experience are to the families and to Carver. Some willingly did it, some with reservations, and some with hostility but all of them are bound with one goal. To be able to accept their loss and deal with their grief. And as they work through their sorrows, they also managed to learn something new about their sons via Carver, and in turn, as a reader, I was able to get to know more of Blake, Mars, and Eli as well.

While Goodbye Days is a very poignant book, it also brings out some laugh. The teenage guy’s friendship, though they may appear immature and do stupid stuff, it was, in my opinion, a realistic and genuine portrayal. I also appreciate how the relationship between Jesmyn and Carver develops and how Jesmyn handled the situation.

Goodbye Days is a brilliantly written and very timely novel about the serious effect of texting and driving. It is about dealing with grief and guilt, friendship, and most of all forgiveness of others and of one’s self. It will evoke a whole lot of emotions, painful yet in the end, there’s hope. Very thought-provoking and consuming.

Goodbye Days follows Carver Briggs, who sent his friends, Mars, Eli and Blake, a simple text message one night asking where they were. It was as Mars tapped out his reply that the three friends were crashed into a truck and died, and Carver can't shirk the feeling that it was his fault. To top it all off, his friends' parents are asking him to help them say goodbye to their sons with 'goodbye day' ceremonies, all while he tries to figure out his feelings towards Eli's girlfriend, Jesmyn. Goodbye Days was a really moving book and I loved the writing style, which was simple but emotional at the same time. I only had some problems with the characters and dialogue. 

I think that Zentner did a really good job of exploring the emotional struggles of Carver following his friends' death. After the funerals of his friends, Carver struggles with panic attacks and still sees his friends around him. He takes his sister's advice and enlists the help of Dr. Mendez, a therapist, to help him recover, and this aspect of the story was my favourite. It was while I read this book that I realised I had not read many books showing male characters struggling with trauma and mental health problems, and so this was really refreshing to read. 

The book also shows how other people are dealing with loss as Carver helps his friends' families with 'Goodbye Days', where they spend one final day doing things that their loved one enjoyed doing, and sharing memories of them. I liked that each of the three families were dealing with their loss in different ways and I feel like Zentner did a really good job at allocating each of these families an appropriate amount of time to explore their stories.

Another aspect of the book is Carver's friendship with Jesmyn, Eli's girlfriend, as they pull together after Eli's funeral. On the one hand, I liked how Zentner toed the line between friendship and romance so that the relationship never became too corny for the context of the overall story. On the other hand, Jesmyn quickly started to get on my nerves when it became clear that she was a bit of a manic pixie dream girl character, and aspect of her character became very repetitive. For example, the fact that she had 'Filipino genes' came up multiple times in random conversations, and the scene where she gets childishly excited at a thunder storm felt too childish for a teenage character to be believable. It simply felt like Zentner was shoving in some 'different' characteristics to make her stand out, but it felt jarring.

My only other issue with the book was that sometimes the dialogue felt unrealistic. For example, the writing style of the book was largely simplistic, but sometimes characters would dive into long speeches about their emotions, with complex imagery that did not seem real for teenage characters. It was a minor issue, because it wasn't that  any of the writing was bad, it just sometimes felt inconsistent in style and tone. 

Overall, Goodbye Days was a really good book and I loved the exploration of Carver's mental health. It was great to read a male character dealing with their emotions, and especially via a therapist, a method which is not often portrayed positively in books. I liked the stories of grief of the different families, but Jesmyn fell flat for me and so this aspect of the book was not quite my cup of tea.

Sadly, I did not finish this book. I couldn't get into the story and the pacing didn't suit my reading style as it just went way too slowly for me. The subject of this book which is about a bad car accident isn't something I enjoy reading about. I recently had a car crash and this put me off reading this book altogether. However, I am sure that someone else would find this book entertaining.

Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner, is a book about grieving and forgiveness. Overcome death, and continue to live with a scar that will always be open. It's a profound story that makes us constantly get emotional, and ask ourselves what we're doing differently in the lives of those we love, because suddenly you're next to people you love, and the next minute you can lose them forever. And that's what we see in Goodbye Days.

Carver Briggs is suffering from the death of his three best friends, and it affects his life intensely. He feels he's alone and he has no one else to talk to, who to go out with, his life will never be the same, and worse, he feels guilty for something he didn't do. Until then he had no idea he could cause the death of his best friends with a text message.

Goodbye Day teaches us to overcome our fears with reflective messages about life and its moments.

what an amazing book. It made me cry and totally laugh... it might;ve made me a little crazy.

Goodbye days will have you reaching for the tissues, will have you feeling a sense of loneliness that you have never felt before and will see you having hope as you follow Carver's journey. This profoundly intense read is important for both parent and child as it serves as a reminder of how dangerous driving and texting is and the reality for those left behind.

I highly recommend this read.

Jeff Zenter doesn’t disappoint. I loved ‘The Serpent King’ so really wanted to read this one. Wonderful characters as always and so emotional

I really liked how Goodbye Days focused on the consequences of texting and driving. But since the driver died in the car accident, the entire blame was shifted towards the texter, Carver. Although the charges against him were bit extreme, cause both of the boys were the ones to blame, it was done to shine a light on how it is somehow, a 2 way street dilemma.

What is a Goodbye, Day, though? It was a request from Blake’s Grandma to Craver. He would spend an entire Day with her as if he was Blake, so the Grandma would get to be with her Grandson one last time.

During the Goodbye Days, more guilt and anxiety builds up inside Carver. But the Goodbye Day with Blake’s grandma was much easier than ones with the angry parents, who were suing him.

The Author was able to take a major, serious issue, add some major,dramatic lights on crooks and crannies that you may not consider in such situations , all in the name of making you think about such tragedies in a new perspective. For example, don’t text a driving person a question when you know that they are driving.

Of course Blake should have ignored the text while driving, but still. Don’t initiate an event that might lead to acatastrophe .I think this was the hidden message in the story. Wether you agree or disagree with it, you have to admit that it is very thought-provoking.

One thing I didn't like was how I did see a Climax even after I was 85% into the book.

That aside,  this was a mind opening read. I give Goodbye Days 4.5/5 stars.

I received an e-ARC of Goodbye Days in exchange with an honest review.

A heart-wrenching story that had me welling up on numerous occasions - but through the vivid and hilarious vignettes of the four friends, it's elevated from being just a tearjerker. I felt so warmly towards this bunch I wanted to be their friend too! Which only makes the plot sting all the more. Written with a voice that is recognisably teen but is also nuanced, sophisticated and rarely one-dimensional, the grief in this story is painfully realistic - your heart truly aches.

Unfortunately, I stopped reading this book at 25%. I didn't like the direction it was going in and it made very little sense to me!

OMG THIS WAS SO SAD. Legit was trying not to cry the whole time I was reading this book X(

After Carver loses his three best friends due to a car crash, he has multiple Goodbye Days to heal his grief. Carver can't stop blaming himself for the accident. As we skip between before and after the accident, we see different relationships, family dynamics, and problems that people have.



Zetner portrays multiple issues throughout Goodbye Days. The main focus is texting and driving. I found this to be really important, and it's good as many teens reading this will be starting to drive. It's also a good reminder for those of us who have been driving for years. Zetner also had a unique point of who is to blame in these situations? Is it the driver who chose to text or the person texting them as they knew the person would be driving?

Goodbye Days are one of the ways Carver uses to help his grief and loss. Each person he interacts with seems to have a very different way of grieving. Zetner writes the exchanges between people grieving differently extremely well. There's a lot of emotion involved. We see different outcomes at the end of the book for how people have dealt with grief.

Our main character also suffers from panic attacks following the accident. The way the panic attacks are written makes you really feel empathy for Carver. Also you feel the heartbreak and grief alongside him. Carver's therapy sessions are also portrayed in a really good light. His mental health isn't mocked or making him seem less than he is. He's shown that this is a natural aspect of loss, and that there are ways to get better.

There are some problematic aspects within the flashback scenes. Some of the jokes are fairly poor taste, although they are realistic of teenage boys. The being prosecuted premise, I felt, was a bit far fetched. Although maybe in America, it would be more likely? As I'm British I don't really understand the law side of the book, but I felt like it was a pretty dumb case.

Five stars.
A simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming tale of friendship, grief, family and hope. A perfect, perfect story that hooked me from beginning to end and shredded my heart into a million pieces. Loved it more than words can describe.

This was a great book. I underlined so much of the writing because it was just so descriptive and beautiful.

I fell in love with all of the characters and really connected with them all.

It dealt with some interesting subjects, particularly the subject of texting and driving. Every person should read this book and then I can guarantee you they will think twice before texting and driving again. This book really hits home what it would be like to experience extreme loss and for it all to feel like it's your fault.

This was a great book!!