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The Last Time We Say Goodbye
The Last Time We Say Goodbye
The Last Time We Say Goodbye
Audiobook9 hours

The Last Time We Say Goodbye

Written by Cynthia Hand

Narrated by Julia Whelan

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

4.5/5

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About this audiobook

In the tradition of Thirteen Reasons Why and All the Bright Places, The Last Time We Say Goodbye is a deeply affecting novel that will change the way you look at life and death.

From New York Times bestselling author Cynthia Hand comes a stunning, heart-wrenching novel of love and loss, which ALA Booklist called "both shatteringly painful and bright with life and hope" in a starred review.

Since her brother, Tyler, committed suicide, Lex has been trying to keep her grief locked away, and to forget about what happened that night. But as she starts putting her life, her family, and her friendships back together, Lex is haunted by a secret she hasn't told anyone—a text Tyler sent, that could have changed everything.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperTeen
Release dateFeb 10, 2015
ISBN9780062329486
Author

Cynthia Hand

The Lady Janies are made up of New York Times bestselling authors Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand, and Jodi Meadows. They first met in 2012, when their publishers sent them on a book tour together, and they hit it off so well they decided to write My Lady Jane so they could go on book tours together all the time. Between the three of them they’ve written more than twenty published novels, a bunch of novellas, a handful of short stories, and a couple of really bad poems. They’re friends. They’re writers. They’re fixing history by rewriting one sad story at a time. Learn more at ladyjanies.com. 

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Reviews for The Last Time We Say Goodbye

Rating: 4.2974683544303796 out of 5 stars
4.5/5

158 ratings22 reviews

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Loved this book!! The audio version was excellent!! Must read
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Well written with a great narrator. Thumbs up from me.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book is definitely for the survivors - the families of those who chose to end their lives that is.

    Trigger Warning: For anyone wanting to read this who suffers from suicidal tendencies, please make sure you're in a safe state of mind before you digest this book. It took me a few days longer than normal because I found myself disassociating and feeling the weight of the grief.

    This was a very personal book. I knew pages into reading that Hand must have had personal experiences with this type of trauma in one way or another. This type of grief is grueling - for both families and those who are suicidal.

    The care Hand took to give respect to the disease that is depression - that is wanting to be gone in the moment - was just... beautiful.

    I think Cynthia wrote perfectly.

    My only critiques were the romance - honestly this add nothing for me. In fact it took away from the story in my opinion. Trauma bonding is a real thing and in no way does my adult self with trauma training and a history of mental illness look at this romance as healthy in the long run. Having our main character reconnect with her family and friends was stunning, but reconnecting to a love left traumatized was... distasteful. Perhaps thats just my experience though. Ofc not everyone is the same.

    I also found the christian talk distracting. I don't know enough about Hand herself, I picked this book based off the content alone. But I wish that had been left out as well.

    Was the religion talk relevant? Of course. This was a white middle class american story - most people in that group fall into Christianity in one way or another. But since this story is about loss and love and moving onwards after death, it would have made the story more relatable and... whats the word... well more palatable for others. The comment her mother made at the end particularly bothered me.

    Of course, I am an athiest with trauma relative to Christian development so, I will also say I'm biased here. I'm sure most people weren't bothered. And I'm sure people who "do jesus" would feel... an understanding or comfort from that moment.

    Other than that I thought the book was utterly flawless. I look forward to trying more of the books shes written.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Another book that failed to hold my attention as Lex went through the grieving process after her younger brother committed suicide.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book was breath taking! I really really enjoy it
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Loved this book. It's so full of hope and I completely ugly cried by the end of it. I would highly recommend it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    So, honestly, if this book weren't written by one of my favorite authors, it's not one I probably would have picked to be so high on my "to-read" list. Suicide isn't a feel-good subject, or one that I'd usually choose to read about. But it's a Cynthia Hand stand-alone novel. I had to read it.

    This was a poignant, well-written book on a difficult topic. It deals with all the emotions of the "aftermath" of a suicide tragedy. Not the immediate aftermath, but of all the months after. The "moving on" time. The guilt that comes from wondering "what if". The trying to figure it out. The effect it has on all your existing relationships. All. the. feels. It was so good. I devoted an entire afternoon to reading it and couldn't stop until I was done.

    The only complaint I had was that it did use some strong language in places. It wasn't excessive, and it was true-to-life, so as an adult reader, I could accept it, but as you know if you've read any of my reviews in the past, I'm just not a fan. I still loved the book, though.

    Would I recommend this to fellow book lovers? Absolutely
    Would I recommend this to my teen daughter? On the fence. It deals with really hard subject matter.

    4.5 of 5 stars
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Thank you for keeping me company during my sleepless nights. I learned, laughed, and cried. Thank you for bringing delight and grief in the same neighborhood. I will always keep Lex and Ty in my heart. ?
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Usually when I write a review I start off with a short synopsis, a preview as to what you might expect to see from the book. For instance there might be a little once upon a time, something about a princess, a prince, a happily ever after, yada, yada, yada. I can't make myself write an over view of this book. I can barley write a sentence about it because I can't put into words how spectacular it is. Lex's brother Ty committed suicide. This book is about the after, the before and how the two collide. That's it. That's all you get. Now please take my advice, even if it's the only advice you ever take from me and go buy this book. Hell buy two copies. I'm not going to lie, when I first picked up this book I had no idea what it was about, it was my first Cynthia Hand book and I went in blind. Within the first couple of pages I was kicking myself for picking this book. I had just finished Playlist For The Dead and I did not want another book about teenage suicide. Let me just say that this book is so much more than a 'suicide book'. It's such a beautifully written story about love and loss and the moments we take for granted. You never know when a goodbye will be your last and Cynthia does an amazing job of teaching us all this life lesson. I am not an overly emotional person, I don't cry in public, I don't get weepy in the movie theater (save it for TFIOS) and when I know how a book is going to end I tend not to get too emotional about the outcome. Well Cynthia Hand, you took my heart out of my chest and wrung it out like a wet paper towel. I finished this book at work thank God I wasn't wearing any eye makeup that day because it was like someone turned on a faucet and there was no stopping the waterfall of tears streaming down my face. Even writing this now, thinking back on the last couple of chapters I'm getting teary eyed. Cynthia Hand broke me in the best possible way. From the dedication on the first page to the last sentence Cynthia weaves a heart wrenching tale, one that I'm sure will stay with me, and other readers, for years to come. Go get this book, a box of tissues and some waterproof mascara. You will not be disappointed. Until next time, GingerIn compliance with FTC guidelines I am disclosing that this book was given to me for free to review. My review is my honest opinion.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I got a copy of this book to review through the Amazon Vine series. I was a huge fan of Hand’s Unearthly series, so I was eager to see what Hand would write for her first contemporary young adult fiction novel. This was a very tough read but incredibly well written. This book is about a girl, Lex, whose brother kills himself. She is dealing with the aftermath and trying to understand why he did this. She and her mother are also struggling to figure out how to get on with their lives when everything has suddenly changed so drastically.I really haven’t read any contemporary fiction about teen suicide before, so keep that in mind (I don’t have a lot to compare this book to). This is a very emotional read; there were parts of the book where I laughed out loud and parts where I cried. The book is very sad, but also ends on a very hopeful note.The story alternates between what Lex is dealing with on a day to day basis and what she writes in a journal she is keeping at the request of her therapist. The whole story is driving towards Lex’s admission about the events that happened the night of her brother’s suicide. This book was absolutely impossible to put down, I read the full 400 pages in one night (when I should have been doing things like exercising and sleeping). I just had to know what actually happened to her brother, what led him to commit suicide, and how Lex and her mom were going to move on with their lives.I loved Lex as a character. She is something of a mathematical genius and she looks at the world a bit differently than most other teens. However, that being said she is dealing with a lot of the same issues. She has a wonderfully geeky and sweet boyfriend that she is struggling to maintain a relationship with because of her brother’s death. She is trying to keep her grades up despite her depression because she wants to go to MIT. Mostly she is struggling with how different everyone treats her because of this one selfish act her brother committed.Overall this is highly recommended if you like young adult contemporary fiction. The book is just incredibly well written and impossible to put down. You get very involved with the characters and their lives very quickly. Just read it somewhere where you don’t mind crying.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Things I love in books:

    1. Strong, flawed protagonists that develop throughout the text
    2. Sweet relationships between the protagonist and their friends
    3. Conflict with parents
    4. Endings that make me cry

    So, naturally, I loved this book.

    So much so, that I don't really have anything more to say.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Review courtesy of Dark Faerie Tales Quick & Dirty: Emotional and often thought provoking, but a very depressing read.Opening Sentence: First I’d like to state for the record that the whole notion of writing this down was not my idea.The Review:I really wanted to enjoy this book but there seems to be a plethora of books about teenage deaths / suicides of late and it’s beginning to get rather repetitive. Recently, I read Playlist For the Dead, which was also about a teenage suicide and the effect the death had on friends and family. Perhaps, I would have enjoyed this more if it was a suspense or mystery, but it just seemed like a very sad, depressing read. Emotional and often thought provoking, but very depressing.Of course, being angry is pointless. Unproductive. They don’t understand yet. That they are still waiting for that one phone call that will change everything. That every one of them will feel like me eventually. Because someone they love will die. It’s one of life’s cruel certainties.The story is told from Lex’s perspective and how she deals with her brother Ty’s death. Initially, Lex is very closed off and has distanced herself from her friends and family, wallowing in her grief. However, the growth in her character is evident as the story progresses and as Lex tries to make sense of what happened. It’s clear that Lex feels guilty because she wasn’t able to prevent her brother’s suicide, but the more she opens up, the better she deals with it. Lex not only helps herself in overcoming her grief, but manages to lure her mother out of her sadness too, as well as begin to mend the bonds with her father. This is all very good for Lex and her family, but I just could not see anything that stood out to mark this book as exceptional.“…If anyone’s going to live to be a hundred, Mom, it’s you. So stop saying your life is over. It’s not even halfway over. And yes, your son died, and that’s awful, and that hurts, but it’s not your fault. And you know what? Everybody dies, and everybody loses people they love-everybody-and that is not an excuse for you to fucking die. I love you, and I need you to be my mother, and I need you to have a life. So get over yourself.”Ty was clearly very depressed and, as Lex notes, suicide is a very common occurrence, it’s just that we don’t notice it until it affects us personally. His death was explained in graphic detail and I wonder whether there should be an age limit since this is YA!There’s death all around us. Everywhere we look. 1.8 people kill themselves every second.We just don’t pay attention. Until we do.The message I took from this read is that if you know someone suffering with depression try to help them as much as you can by being there to listen and actively showing that you care. But in the end, the only person that can help you is yourself. The second, and more important message is to appreciate life and the people around you because you never know what will happen next.Notable Scene:“I know things have been hard since Tyler…”And she pauses.God, I hate that pause, while the person speaking searches for the most watered-down way to say died, like calling it by another name is going to make it any less awful: terms like laid to rest, like death’s some kind of nap; passed or departed, like it’s a vacation; expired, which is supposed to be more technical but really sounds like the deceased is a carton of milk, a date stamped on them, after which they become-well, sour milk.“Killed himself,” I fill in for Miss Mahoney.FTC Advisory: HarperTeen provided me with a copy of The Last Time We Say Goodbye. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    As Lex deals with her grief and guilt in the months after her brother’s suicide, Cynthia Hand delivers a heartwrenching story, but it’s not without hope.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book has a lot of similarities with "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green. However, the differences it does have is extremely breathtaking, and had me in tears. I love that there's a good conclusion to this book, and it wasn't ALL about love. It is fantastic and morbid and genuine and so so raw. It is a fantastic book.

    I also loved the speaker for this audiobook, she sounded magnificent. I cant imagine a better performer than her.

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Last Time We Say Goodbye is like Euler's Equation.

    "Nerd translation: Euler’s equation is said to be the most perfect formula ever written. Simple but elegant. Beautiful."
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    ‘Time passes. That’s the rule. No matter what happens, no matter how much it might feel like everything in your life has frozen around one particular moment, time marches on.’ Lexie is an unexceptionally smart student with big dreams of going to MIT. She has a boyfriend who loves her and a group of friends she can depend on. But that was life seven weeks ago. Now? Her grades are slipping, she’s broke up with her boyfriend and she won’t talk to any of her friends. Seven weeks ago her brother killed himself. But now she’s starting to his ghost. A series of journal entries reveals the facts behind Lexie’s grief (and guilt) and the heartbreak begins anew when we are exposed to the truth of her pain.‘I didn’t know to savor that moment on the dance floor, to understand how beautiful and rare it was, how fragile, how ephemeral, when Ty was happy. When we were all happy, and we were together, and we were safe.I didn’t know.I didn’t know.’ Grief comes in many forms as we all handle it in different ways. Lexie’s path of grief led her to shut everyone out and while this storyline has certainly been done before, it still managed to resonate honestly and leave a strong impression. These days, death and grief have become most common in YA novels and while it can certainly come off as a morbid fascination, the existence of these types of novels can be vital for those who don’t quite know how to handle their grief. It can serve as proof to those who have also experienced grief that they are far from alone and that there are people that can help. It’s a sad fact of life that we must all learn how to cope, heal and continue living. The Last Time We Said Goodbye is more of a cautionary tale seeing as the story is told from the surviving sister and inevitably shows the repercussions of suicide and the effects of grief but manages to still leave the reader with a facet of hope to cling to. While this is a work of fiction, the author states that she had a younger brother that killed himself which only made this all the more poignant and truly from the heart.The Last Time We Said Goodbye is a raw and brutally honest depiction of the various sides of grief. It’s an insightful and admirable story about acceptance and forgiveness that will no doubt leave you heartsick but is an incredibly worthy read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was a lovely book on such a difficult topic! One I would recommend to anyone who has had to cope with the loss of a loved one to suicide. Very well done and well written.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    for anyone that has dealt with losing somebody to suicide, this book touches everything that you have felt.. great read
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A great book about what it means to regret not being able to help someone so dear to you, that eventually you'll be able to accept it even though you know that things won't be the same after the fact, that it's okay to forgive yourself too.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I wanted to read The Last Time We Say Goodbye because the subject of mental illness and the fall out of suicide is personal to me. I could relate with Lex because I feel the guilt of a family member who's lost their life and questioning everything. Could I have done something differently? What if this and what if that. The romance in the flash backs was sweet. Lex is a smart girl and self professed nerd. We know from the beginning in present that her and Steven didn't work out but I still enjoyed looking at their history and seeing the awkward interactions and the sweet exploration. The family dynamic in this book was dysfunctional even before the suicide. After even more so. Their parents went through a divorce and their time with their dad is stilted. Her mom after is obviously depressed and not living in the present for lex. She sleeps all the time and doesn't really talk to lex about what happened. I totally get what lex was going through emotionally. She didn't cry, and that is something that I struggle with feeling almost robotic in that way because even though mourning, the tears Digby back up on the outside what I feel inside. She also deals with anxiety and panic and it can be so debilitating and hard to understand and deal with. Lex's struggles and working towards goals to make things even a little better is realistic. None of the revelations. realizations, or healing came over night. She had to work for it. She used journals and counceling, and talking with friends trying to heal. She also has her mom who feels that her life is over having lost Tyler, and she wants to be a support for her and as she learns that it will hurt, there are other people that want to help. The ending was hopeful, but still shows that only time will heal (cliches are cliches for a reason). It shows the importance of family (no matter how dysfunctional), friends (even when you feel like you have nothing in common anymore.) That everyone has issues and knows pain and loss on some level, and that they really don't care how hurt, they just want you to let you in. It wrapped things up well and left me feeling emotionally beaten and then a slow heal for me too. Bottom Line: Realistic journey of Lex trying to make sense of and heal from the suicide of her brother.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    For more reviews, gifs, Cover Snark and more, visit A Reader of Fictions.Despite the sad title, part of me was hoping for the romance of Cynthia Hand’s unearthly. Whatever the circumstances, I’ll always be hoping for swoons. As soon as I hit the dedication, which I usually skip, I knew that The Last Time We Say Goodbye would be an incredibly sad book. It reads, “For Jeff. Because this is the only way I know to reach for you.” In just those lines, I feel pain and heartbreak. The Last Time We Say Goodbye seems to me almost a character study of dealing with the loss of a loved one to suicide.Since I wasn’t in the mood for a darker contemporary, I wasn’t sure if I was actually going to read The Last Time We Say Goodbye. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to read it eventually, but I figured I’d give the egalley a couple of pages, and I’d DNF it with every intention to come back to it if it didn’t grab me. There’s a reason, though, that Hand’s Unearthly, despite not being my thing plot-wise grabbed me years ago. She excels at characters and narration. This means that the book grabbed me on the first page; the first paragraph told me that I’d be reading the whole novel now. Here’s the first paragraph, so you can see why:First I’d like to state for the record that the whole notion of writing this down was not my idea. It was Dave’s. My therapist’s. He thinks I’m having trouble expressing my feelings, which is why he suggested I write in a journal—to get it out, he said, like in the old days when physicians used to bleed their patients in order to drain the mysterious poisons. Which almost always ended up killing them in spite of the doctors’ good intentions, I might point out.It’s that joke there at the end that told me this would be the sort of sad book that I could handle. I despise sentiment, and sometimes that’s what the so-called issue books are. Lots of sad, sad sentiment. I like my emotion cloaked in sarcasm or hidden beneath an inability to parse emotions. These things are present in The Last Time We Say Goodbye. I think these things make the book lighter in some ways, easier to digest, but also darker.Lex hardly feels sad when The Last Time We Say Goodbye begins. Not feeling sad would ordinarily be a good thing, but in this case she’s not happy either. She’s not remotely herself, but she can’t cry anymore and she’s numb, except for the times where she feels like her insides are a hollow pit. Those times of abject pain are the best times, because at least she knows she can still feel something after her brother’s suicide. Something about that hits me so much harder than anything else.As she should be, Lex attends therapy. There is, by the way, zero stigma attached to this, which again is as it should be. The therapy runs throughout the background of the novel, informing everything that Lex does. Her breakthroughs seem to come from talking with people in her life and not from therapy, but would not have come were she not in therapy. Writing in the journal helps open her up and get her memory going, helps her to remember Ty.The Last Time We Say Goodbye verges on magical realism. Both Lex and her mother see ghosts. What I like is that it still feels like a contemporary and not a paranormal. Whether ghosts are real or it was some part of the grieving process, it was what they needed to go on living and find joy again. Lex finds it difficult to forgive herself and everyone else, because any one of them could maybe have prevented Ty from committing suicide. The whole book is about Lex coming to terms with that. It’s at no point a happy book, but it’s as hopeful as it can be, given the tragic circumstances.There are two more things I want to mention. 1) I love that Lex is into mathematics. She actually thinks her way through the Fibonacci sequence to fall asleep. She worries about English class and loves calculus. She dreams of attending MIT and becoming a mathemetician. 2) The romance, which is minimal, delights me. I can’t say it was incredibly shippy, but I liked that it followed a non-traditional YA novel pattern, since they were an established couple before the novel began.Pick The Last Time We Say Goodbye up when you’re ready for a good cry. No, for the record, I didn’t cry, but I did feel pain.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It is five days before Christmas when Alex’s younger brother, Ty, TheLastTimeWeSayGoodbyecommits suicide: a shotgun blast to his chest. He had stayed home from school, ran certain errands and, it seems, carefully planned the day. Her mother is coping by going to work, coming home, having a glass or three of wine and crying. Her parents divorced several years ago and, while Alex sees her father weekly for dinner, the time is taken up with idle conversation, so his emotions barely play a role in this book. Alex is barely coping herself.Alex’s therapist has suggested antidepressants to which Alex is vehemently opposed. So, instead he recommends that she keep a journal as an outlet for her emotions. Possibly direct the entries to someone in particular, and describe firsts and lasts.Both Alex and her mother often seem to find themselves in Ty’s basement bedroom. On one such visit Alex thinks she smells his cologne and sees him leaning against the wall. On another visit she finds a letter in a desk drawer addressed to Ashley, his former girlfriend. She and her neighbor (and former best friend), Sadie, debate the merits of giving the letter to Ashley. Sadie is addicted to shows about mediums and thinks Ty’s appearances are due to unfinished business which Alex must complete.For some reason I feel like I’ve read a similar book recently but I can’t remember the title. In it as well as The Last Time We Say Goodbye there is a letter to a former girlfriend left by the suicide. (If you have any ideas, let me know.) Of course the letter has a cathartic impact on the recipient.As I imagine is the case in most suicides several people feel they could have prevented Ty’s actions, when truth be known, most of the time those last actions would have been too late. That is a hard lesson to learn and accept. Additionally, everyone reacts differently to loss of a loved one, which is evident in The Last Time We Say Goodbye. As the book jumps back and forth between Alex’s journal, present day and recollection, it concentrates on the survivors, and less so on why Ty did what he did. There are vague hints, but nothing that over time would suggest suicide as being inevitable. This might have put everything in a better perspective for the reader.Having said all of this, I found The Last Time We Say Goodbye a good read. I liked the characters, although, as I said, you don’t get much of a feel for Ty. The emotions seemed real. The interaction between Alex and her friends and family is understandable. And hey, it has as happy an ending as a book about suicide can have.I must be in my ‘reading suicide’ phase because I just started AllTheBrightPlacesAll the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven, which starts off with a teen thinking of suicide. So, I think after this, I’ll move on to a happy book. Any suggestions?