The Last Time We Say Goodbye by Cynthia Hand

The Quick Cut: A teen girl struggles with the recent suicide of her brother and the fallout it has caused. A Real Review: No matter what stage in life you are, one thing remains true: you will never completely know what is going through another person's mind. People who look happy and seem to have everything they could want sometimes are the ones who struggle the most. For Lex, this is a very true reality after her brother committed suicide. Lex is planning her future, but it looks so grim compared to what she used to imagine. She used to have a happy and complete family with a loving boyfriend. Now her parents have divorced, her boyfriend is gone, and she's the girl whose brother killed himself. When her car chooses to work (a rare occasion), her mother doesn't and drinks her pain away. It seems like nothing is the way it's supposed to be. How can she move forward with life when she feels stuck in the past? This book is a very nicely dark telling of what suicide can look like and how it changes those left behind. While that story may feel lifelike, it also feels like one we have all seen before. There isn't any particular element of this story that stands out as unique or an additional perspective to a well told topic. Lex almost feels a bit fake in how she comes off character wise. She's depressed and stuck in the past with a family who has literally fallen apart. To add to the media stereotypes, she also is super smart and on a path to an Ivy League college. Really? Why does it seem like this trope happens too often? For being such a small percentage of the population, it's an aspect covered in stories a lot. A book that suffers from a lack of imagination. My rating: 3.5 out of 5