I wanted so bad to like this book! I think it has so much potential, but I just found it to be too confusing. I often couldn't tell when the point of view was shifting so I got very confused about the lives of the different characters and often mixed them up.

I received an advanced digital copy of this book from the author, St. Martin's Press and Netgalley.com. Thanks to all for the opportunity to read and review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Ms. Ganger's novel is a difficult read. It deals with loss and grief paired with other mental illness. Unlike other YA "let's talk about mental health" books, this is written based off the author's experience. The writing is messy, the language strong. Characters are hard to get to know and find likeable. It feels very real in its interactions.

Overall, it is a heartbreaking story, possibly triggering. Parental guidance suggested in regards to language.

4 out of 5 stars. Recommended reading.

Six Goodbyes We Never Said follows Naima as she grieves her father and Dew, the sweet next door neighbor, as he grieves the sudden lose of his parents. they both struggle with their problems of their own.

this book covered mental illnesses, such as OCD and anxiety. the beginning started off a bit rocky but eventually i was finally able to follow along and enjoy the story.

my heart truly hurt for both naima and dew, but especially sweet, kind dew. dew has my whole heart, he deserves the world and more. i really related to their constant thoughts about not being enough and their constant blaming themselves for things beyond their control. i truly admired how brave they ended up becoming once they sought comfort in each other.

i couldn't get through this book without crying. i had to keep pausing because i just couldn't see through my tears. you know a book is good when it pulls at your heartstrings. this book was so beautiful and raw and so well written, i couldn't put it down.

10/10 definitely recommend it especially if you're looking for a good cry.

I don’t want to say I hated this but I really didn’t like it at all. The writing was really terrible and the perspective of the two characters was so vastly different it was difficult to keep them continuously developing.

Dew and Naima are both individually coping with the death of their parent(s) and their various forms of mental illness. I like the mental illness rep but it was done in a way where I felt that it was almost toooo much. I know the author pulls from her own experiences but it was so over the top that I couldn’t really relate.

I really liked the idea of the story and had the writing been more developed (it felt very juvenile) I think I would have liked this more.

E-arc provided by Net Galley!

I liked the idea of the book the synopsis of it sounds amazing, something was just lacking for me. I'm not sure what it was but it felt like something was missing.

Six Goodbyes We Never Said was a book that immediately drew my attention on Netgalley as I do like YA books that deal with mental health problems, but deal with them in the correct way. And although this book approached the subject matters really well, the character development and the likability of the characters really let me down. Immediately as the book started, I didn't like Naima. I found her attitude towards other people COMPLETELY standoffish, we weren't given any reasons for her treatment of other people. The way she spoke to Nell specifically put a bad taste in my mouth when Nell was far from the wicked stepmother trope. When she first met characters, for example Stella, she also came across as a bit of a bitch. And I understand she was having a really hard time and was dealing with a lot of grief, but there was no reason for her to treat Stella the way she did. I can guarantee that Stella wouldn't have liked her very much after that because who would.

I think the layout of this book would've been better and easier to read in physical format compared to ebook, as it was a little hard to read on my Kindle iPhone app.

It wasn't a bad read, but overall, could've been better.

I received a copy of SIX GOODBYES WE NEVER SAID on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the publisher and author.

FOUR stars and here’s why:

The book is a #ownvoices for the author writes from wading in the trenches of living with mental health issues. I found the book beautifully written and hard to put down. Each person experiences life in their own unique way. The author portrayed two emotionally raw characters who are dealing with death and anxiety in different ways. I found it to be a real page-turner, but I work with teens, so I found that Ms. Ganger really captured the essence of what it’s like to lose someone near and dear to one’s heart; particularly at that age when everything is so vibrant and fresh and emotional. I fell in love with the story and rooted for the characters. I realize it’s one of these stories that does not necessarily have to have a happily ever after tied up in a big red bow, and I really wanted one which is why I gave it four instead of five stars. Having said that, however, it’s one of these stories that will stay with you long after you finish reading it. Highly recommend.

Interesting idea and beautiful cover, BUT I expected so much more from this.
What unlikeable characters.
Not my jam. This simply wouldn't stand out in the flood of own voices YA novels that have better rep for mental health issues.

I seem to have read an inordinate number of “it’s not you it’s me” books recently, because this is another one of those. I don’t know what it was about this book (most likely I was just in the wrong mood to be reading it), but I just didn’t click with it. So, instead of trying to work out why, I’m going to just give you four reasons you should read this book (okay, so maybe six would have been more apt, but I was struggling).

Six Goodbyes We Never Said is a dual-POV story between Naima and Dew, two teenagers grieving the loss of their parent(s). Naima moves to live with her grandparents, who are Dew and his adoptive family’s neighbours, and meets Dew (who, it has to be said, is a little stalkerish). Ultimately, not much happens in the book – it’s like a coming of age story, but without the coming of age bit (Charlotte, this makes no sense, you say. Well, read it to find out).

Like I said, I wasn't the biggest fan of this one. But that was just me, so here's four reasons you should read this book.

1. The writing style is unique and the voices of Naima and Dew are so distinct. I don’t think I’ve read a style that sounds so realistic and I definitely haven’t read one that’s so successfully managed to differentiate between two characters.

2. It’s an ownvoices portrayal of OCD, anxiety and depression, which I haven’t read a whole amount of (particularly OCD – I can think of two other books with that). And we all know the value of ownvoices stories.

3. There’s no romance, if that’s not your thing. It’s Naima and Dew becoming friends. A boy and a girl just being friends (even though Dew does start off thinking Naima is his soulmate). Honestly that’s one thing that YA lit needs a whole lot more of.

4. Naima is bi or pan. There’s no label used which did bug me a little, but getting to see a bi character just exist in a story without being either a stereotyped side character or part of a romance? That’s something I do need to see every once in a while (as much as I do love romances).

So, in the end, even though this book wasn’t for me, it’s still a good book, and for the right person could be great.

I requested this because it sounded exactly like the kind of book I would like. It deals with anxiety and OCD and losing a loved one who was in the military.
Unfortunately, I was appalled by the amount of language in this book. I ended up not finishing the book because of the language and because I did not connect with the main character, Naima. Thank you St. Martin's Press for allowing me to read this novel.

I received this as an ARC from Netgalley. I was excited to read this title, as the cover was appealing and the story line intrigued me. I was disappointed to say the least. I wanted to root for the main character Naima, being a mother and someone who has dealt with mental illness in the family. I found her lack of empathy towards others and rudeness to be a huge turnoff, it made it hard to be on her side, even though she has dealt with so much heartache and loss.
I found the chapters to be confusing at times and hard to follow. I often found myself going back to reread pages...which is a big turn off for me.
I am not sure I would recommend this book to someone who is/has struggled with anxiety/depression/PTSD. It is a heavy book that carries these topics throughout, yes they are important topics to discuss and be open about, but if you struggle this book may be a trigger.

I really enjoyed this book. The male protagonist was delightful. The female protagonist, on the other hand, was rather irritating and prickly throughout most of the book. Being a high school teacher, I sometimes see students who are as grating as this young woman, but I seldom do I see students with as much unconditional support as these students seemed to have in their families and their communities. As I read this, the thought crossed my mind that if I were a young, at risk person reading this book, I would likely be envious of all the support these two characters had. Perhaps it would be difficult to relate to these two or even to learn and grow from their experiences for that reason. Still, I found the book valuable and interesting and worth the time I spent reading so I will recommend it to my students.

Six Goodbyes We Never Said has the potential to be a very moving book that will allow readers to see their personal brands of mental illness reflected on the page. It's important to note that this story is ownvoices for the mental illness rep which is crucial to keep in mind when critiquing the rep. Not all mental illness presents the same exact way for each person.

That said, the formatting for this book was extremely confusing between the narrator shifts and the inserted histories. I made it about 30% of the way through the book before I had to unfortunately do what I almost never do, especially for ARCs: I labeled it as a DNF.

The alternating perspectives and time shifts takes you out of the story itself. Neither voice is particularly compelling either. I found the characters themselves to be interesting, but how the story was being told was not.

This will find an audience which is why I'm still rating it as a 2. However, I am not the right person for this.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the Arc in exchange for my honest review.

I don't think I have read a book in a long time that was written by an author who suffers from mental illness. I think the experiences she has had allows her to really REALLY get to the nitty gritty of certain disorders and not writing about them in a stereo typical way. Namia has OCD (and I've read some really good books that deal with OCD in a great fastion) and GAD (which is something i suffer from ) and I can really appreciate the way it was approached and addressed.
I'm glad the characters of Namia and Drew find each other (Drew has PTSD). They are both written very genuine and authentic. I really really enjoyed this book

I loved the cover and description. I wanted this book to be amazing and unfortunately I couldn't even finish this read. I was getting confused and had to re-read some parts. I pushed as long as I could and stopped 50% into the book.

Awe I liked this! So good! It was sweet and showed about having courage. This was a great teen novel and I'll definitely encourage/recommend this one!

The cover and the synopsis really got me hooked. However, sad to say that this book doesn't have a good start, at least for me. The first half of the book was just a mess. I was confused with the writing style, with the format, the POVs. Everything was all over the place. I appreciate that the author was trying to highlight so many important and pertinent issues, especially mental health. Then, we also have how to cope with grief and loss, body positivity, and feminism. But everything just felt being thrown in a pan and the author was just trying to make it tastes good but it didn't work that well.

The main character, Naima, who's this emo teenage girl and she's so grumpy all the time. She's pretty much one dimensional, and basically just spreading that dark and negative vibes through and through. The other main character is Dew (Andrew) who's just so creepy in the first place, like he loves Naima so much even though he has not met her, like whut? Yea.

The repetitiveness of the six times of some thoughts from Naima was fine for me because it's her mental illness so, I can accept that. But honestly, I'm still struggling to see why six? Why her dad gave her six balloons? Maybe I missed something? However, there were certain moments, which were just awkward situations that was written poorly, in my opinion, of course. For example, there was this one scene whereby the stepmom wanted to leave Naima with her grandparents but then she was like contemplating and the grandparents asked her to stay and she actually almost going out, but she came back into the house crying and then almost leaving again and the grandparents were again trying to make her stay and finally she left. I was like what the heck? I was losing it and almost DNF the book. But then, Naima met Dew and I thought this is going to get better.

No, it didn't get better, at least not directly after they met. Only in the 80 pages of the remaining book that the story actually got better. I finally felt some emotions and I just love how Dew and Naima facing almost the same tragedy but they were handling their problem on their own instead of like let's be a couple and whatnot. Towards the end, Andrew did help Naima but at the same time, he's helping himself. That's when I realised, even though he's creepy, he has such big heart and I love that kid. He also made Naima slightly better and has a softer heart towards the end. If not because of Dew, Naima would forever stay static and emo.

Coping with loss is a really personal and lonely journey and this book taught me a lot about it. Like one would really close their world and shove everybody outside of their bubble and it could be really depressing. I'm both glad and sad that only towards the end, I got to feel all these emotions. This book was a bit slow for me. But I'm glad I didn't DNF this book because it ended somewhat nicely, it made me tear up a little. The feelings that I felt in the last 50 pages or so really covered up all those messy things going in the first half of the book.

Would I recommend this book? I'm not sure. I hope that whatever happened with the format would be fixed (or maybe it's just a glitch) and the chapters would be named appropriately and not 'Naima' all the freaking time. Nevertheless, this book does highlight on many important issues and I really appreciate that.

Beautifully written and a real page-turner. I fell in love with this story and the characters. Couldn't put it down and was so invested into it. Hope it gets the hype it deserves upon release.

This book was okay and it hits some hard hard topics it has to do with mental health and the death of a parent which I thought I would connect with because I lost a parent but the writing style had me confused and I had to focus so hard. But it does mess with your emotions so be ready to have tissues ready and I hope you all enjoy it

3.5 stars
I had mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand I really enjoyed how it explored topics that tend to be under dealt with in the sphere of YA ( OCD, PTSD and losing a parent). I truly felt for the characters and I believe the author provided a genuine insight into who they were and did a good job building the two main characters.
But I feel like because of this the rest of the story fell away, and there wasn’t really a cohesive plot and other side characters were neglected. So at times, the book was a bit boring because the only thing that is keeping it together are these two characters, but I felt like at times it could have been more engaging.
I also feel like the writing style was a bit underdeveloped and disjointed at times, and the formatting also made it hard to figure out whose point of view the book was coming from.
All in all, I think this book had potential to be really great with the development of the author’s ability, but I enjoyed it; it was a hard hitting novel that left me with much to think after reading it.