Wish I Could Have Said Goodbye by Shari A. Brady

She hadn’t rebelled by letting her hair run embarrassingly wild either. “Nothing.” “Nothing? First you lock yourself in your room and then you show up at a family holiday looking like that?” For instance, at one point, her father got pissed at Mello for having her hair down, not in a ponytail: “What the hell has gotten into you?” His face looks like old crumpled up newspaper. They were not at all fun to hate, either. Mello’s parents, however, from their dismissal to their complete disrespect of Mello’s choices and wants, became a bit of a burden to my enjoyment of the story. Mello and Howie are the life of the book, simply put. He was often lively and charismatic as well, giving this book the upper it had to have. She keeps everyone at arms length, separated by her self-blame, but Howie finds a way to get through to her, and instead he becomes her rock. Luckily, by her side stands Howie, the perfect kind of personality for her situation. I understood her reactions that were often driven by her grief a result of keeping all the pain and blame inside.

While I’m not going to say that I connected with Mello on any real level–she never got into my heart like some other protagonists in similar contemporary novels–I was still able to sympathize with her situation quite easily. It’s hard to move on when something so unexpected hits, something you think you could have fixed if only you would have done something. You feel Mello’s pain and you understand her guilt. The emotional aspect of the book is present from the start. Carmella (Mello)’s sister and best friend just died of a drug overdose, which has left her family ashamed and confused, as well as broken to pieces. We’re experiencing the aftermath of a familial death. Thus, it’s a little hard to straighten out my feelings towards this book, but if you’d ask me if it was good overall, then the answer would be yes. These would come in spurts, spiking my irritation towards certain aspects, but then it would quickly dissolve and I would enjoy the book once more. Some part of the book I really enjoyed, but other parts annoyed me to bits. Wish I Could Have Said Goodbye was a little bit of a roller coaster ride for me. *A copy was provided by CBL Book Promotions for review purposes*

Wish I Could Have Said Goodbye by Shari A. Brady