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Things I’m Seeing Without You
By: Peter Bognanni
Publisher: Penguin Group Young Readers Group
Pub Date: 10/3/17
Tess has lost control of her life. She’s spiraling and no one is there. She’s away at a school in Iowa, her parents divorced and these last couple of years have been hard but now Jonah is gone too.
They met at a party in Iowa, had an amazing night but he went to school in Boston. So the emails, texts and video chats started. Long distance is hard but it’s harder when you're 17.
But things began to change for Jonah, he fell into a deep depression and he slowed down on writing to Tess. Unknown to Tess, Jonah suffered from depression. After not hearing from him she finally got someone to confirm he was dead. So she moved back to her fathers after quitting school and began to grieve. What she doesn’t see coming is a message that turns her whole world upside down. Jonah is messaging her. Who? How? Why?

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC! 3.5 stars
An interesting look at grief, mourning, people we think we know, and moving on after loss.

Thanks for the chance to read this book, but sadly it was not a book for me. I'm happy to see that others enjoyed it but I just couldn't get into it. I appreciate the opportunity but I was just not the right fit.

While I didn't dislike this book, there was an element of compulsion that seemed to be missing from the story.

Young Adult Literature is no stranger to heartache, it is no stranger to gritty stories, of grief and sorrow. With our ever changing world and living our lives, out over social media, coping with death and grief is also something that now has a place in cyberspace.

The Things I Am Seeing Without You has so many faucets to life as a young adult in this day and cyber age and can be an eye opener to those who pay attention.

Tess is struggling after losing her special friend to suicide and learning to live her life all over again. A story of first love, family and friendship in a time when many suffer from some form of mental illness, it is a story of the heart.

Something felt off about this character the entire time I actually read the story. Super flighty parents with enough money for a private boarding school, but a dad who blew her college fund on odd business investments odd. Plus, Tess didn't feel like a real person. I didn't finish this.

A wonderful book showing that grief can manifest it's self in many different ways, and that each person copes with loss differently.

Things I’m Seeing Without You is a bit weird. Tess’ parents — particularly her dad — are well meaning but extremely dysfunctional. Her mother is off on a soul-searching yoga trip in Asia, and her dad … well her dad plans funerals for animals.

For some reason, although I never could figure out quite why, Tess attends a Quaker school that seems very loose with rules. Her parents are all over the place with mom phoning it in — literally — and dad not quite sure what to do.

It’s not until she starts helping her dad with his funeral business that Tess begins to see life and death in a different way. Helping him not only takes the edge off her grief but it also opens the door to something way bigger.

When I started Things I’m Seeing Without You I seriously questioned whether I would read it all the way through. I didn’t like Tess. I couldn’t relate to her. But as the book progressed, universal themes of family, friendship, depression, loss, sorrow and anger evened things out.

Truthfully, I never did come around to loving Tess, but I did come to appreciate the challenges she faces. And I appreciated author Peter Bognanni’s exploration of how we honor those we lose.

The collateral damage of suicide is a heavy thing - some people get lost in the grief for sometimes or for always. Reading about how Tess swims through her grief can help if you're swamped in that sea yourself. Some of it's healing, some of it frustrating... but I didn't have to talk to anyone or worry about Tess judging my own journey. Good company in awful circumstances. A good book for escaping your head but also feeling deeply.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I felt Tess's voice was very deep, while dealing with loosing her first love and being in shock over the whole thing.
I did feel that there could have a little bit more indulgence into her mental illness/her boyfriend's, since he did commit suicide.
I did really like the dynamic between Tess and her father and how it helped her deal with the pain and grief she was going through.
Overall it is a good teen read, and very relevant.

Nothing out of the ordinary here. I enjoyed this but it isn't something I would recommend nor would i reach for it again. Overall, it is something I have seen before.

I really liked the twist in this book-that Jonah's roommate had misrepresented himself and had been communicating in disguise. It made me things how I would feel if that happened to me. Would I have felt too betrayed to reach out again? Would I give him another chance? This book kept me turning pages to see what would happen.

I really like Peter Bognanni's writing style. I was hooked by p.8 when he wrote, "I neglected to wake my roommate, Emma, before I took off. She had snuck her boyfriend in again, and they were locked in a pornographic pretzel hold that defied imagination. Seriously, they were like conjoined staircases in an Escher drawing, only naked and with more body hair."
How can't you love that?!
Later there was, "All around, there were brushed, shining horses galloping across sun-kissed meadows. They looked like they were auditioning for a nine-year old girl's wall calendar."
I gotta say, I think Peter Bognanni writes teenage girl pretty well.

The story is one of mourning death but celebrating life. It's about growth in the broken places, and we all have broken places.

There were spots that walked an absurd line for me, but I was willing to keep walking because I was so invested in the characters. I wanted every one of them - every struggling, fallible one of them - to find some peace, some resolution. And this story didn't disappoint.

Tess is having a difficult time after losing someone close to her. She drops out of school and moves onto her dad's couch as a way of coping. When her dad, who is in the funeral business, forces Tess to come to work with him, she discovers a way to help mitigate her pain. I think students trying to come to terms with the death of a loved one will relate to Tess's struggle and pain.

This book was a bit of a surprise in the way it had more depth and heart than I was expecting it to have due to the summary I read prior to reading it. This story did a beautiful job discussing loss and the way we deal with it in so many different ways. Loss is a difficult thing and when 17 year old Tess loses her boyfriend Jonah suddenly she starts to fall to pieces. She and Jonah met once but had a long term relationship online. After his death, she has a bit of a breakdown and makes her way home to her father and his mortuary business. The story that follows is one of healing, recovery, loss and love. The aspects of love in this story are many and without giving much away, I really enjoyed reading about Tess and her journey as she dealt with the new issues thrown her way upon moving home. I look forward to more from this author!

I want to thank NetGalley and Penguin Young Readers Group/ Dial Books for providing me with this copy in exchange for an honest review

3/5 Stars

This is a book with a very deep meaning, the way in which they have touched on a subject as delicate as death in general, whether of a loved one or of other people, and how it explores the different ways in which the you can live the loss, from the suffering, the negation, until the acceptance, was touched with some humor but above all with much respect and I liked that


The book follows the Tess life after the suicide of her boyfriend Jonah, with whom he had a relationship mostly online, through messages through facebook. We will see how this event affects her life and changes it completely, leading her to make very difficult and important decisions for her. In the midst of all this she will meet Daniel, Jonah’s roommate who also tries to fill the void which has remained because of Jonah’s death. Together they will try to overcome this loss in their lives and their union will lead them on an adventure in search of answers.

Before reading the book, I supposed it would be very sentimental, especially since it touches on a super delicate subject like suicide and all that this means for the people around it, and it was, but not as much as I expected.
It’s a reading that has a much deeper meaning than it shows, even so, as you go through the plot you’ll find yourself in the same way with very funny moments, as painful, which makes it very easy and light to read, I think the humor inside the book has been handled in a very intelligent way, it has made me laugh but I’ve never forgotten the main theme, it was certainly a deep reading but also fresh and fun, although it hasn’t managed to reach me as strongly as I expected it did


I didn’t feel committed to the story at the beginning I have to say that I was able to hook me up with the plot roughly about in the half of the book, this doesn’t mean that the beginning was bad, but personally I felt that Tess’s speedy decisions took the plot to another place, and I wasn’t very interested but after that the plot returned to focus on the subject that interested me more, that was the relationship between Jonah and Tess, I really liked knowing the details of how they met to then understand the Tess’s feelings better, because to be honest it was hard for me to understand how she was so shattered for someone she had only seen once, but then I managed to understand how the whole thing happened.

Tess is a very peculiar and different character, at first I was like “I can’t stand this girl”, this is because her personality is quite bad-tempered and she’s not afraid to say what she thinks without any filter, or make decisions totally without thinking about the consequences of it. I think that in a way she is still very immature, but in the end there were moments when I could see her as a more empathic and sensitive person and I liked that a lot, so I decided to give this character a chance after all. Her relationship with his father is at first quite problematic and I think her reasons for not trusting him were quite valid, and it was very interesting to see how their relationship develops from everything that happens and as Tess allows herself to open up to her father in spite of their differences, besides the Tess’s father really commits himself to her, and to be able to see that was of great value

I feel that my review probably isn’t giving much information, but I feel that the book is very abstract in a certain way, and I don’t want to give more details and feel that then I make spoilers or you will not feel surprised once you read it. I feel it’s a very modern story about how to deal with loss and how in the way, you learn about yourself and those around you, how to learn to forgive, to heal and to accept and I think that is the most important thing I can tell you about the book. Oh and during the book they travel to Sicily, and I looked for the landscapes in Google lol, and it’s a beautiful place, I haven’t seen such an incredible place ever in a book which is great


To be honest, I expected more from the book, I think I’ve get into it with alot of expectations and for some reason I thought I would get more from it , this doesn’t mean that it’s a bad book, I just had some problems with the characters and especially with the final that although I feel it was nice, I expected something more.

Even so it’s something that you could enjoy if you’re looking for a quick reading, that touches a subject such as the loss, with a very peculiar main character. In summary, I still recommend it, 3 stars is a good rating for me, and I feel that in the end with everything the book has left me is the rating it deserves

As this novel begins Tess is dealing with the grief of the death of her boyfriend Jonah. But the more readers learn about Tess, the more they realize that this relationship was not really what it seems. Tess only met Jonah once and the rest of their relationship was via texts and social media. Since Jonah's death, Tess has continued the one sided social media conversation as she deals with her grief. To say much more would be to reveal spoilers.

Things I'm Seeing Without You is a YA contemporary read that mixes romance with more serious themes as death and grief and even has a dose of humor as well. There is no doubt that the writing style is very engaging and I was able to connect instantly to the story. I liked Tess' sassy tone and took an instant liking to the writing, making Things I'm Seeing Without You a very enjoyable read. I do have to say that the main character's sarcasm and humor are probably not for everyone, explaining the mixed reviews out there... But if you are able to connect, you are in for a treat. The whole funeral business definitely gives this story a unique touch and adds a little something to the plot as well. I'm not sure if everything is all that credible and I had a few eyebrow-raising moments here and there, especially concerning the credibility of the final part of Things I'm Seeing Without You. Somehow I just don't think they would ever been able to do what they did or even get there in the first place... And it's one of the reasons I had to lower the rating. I'm still on the fence when it comes to the main characters; I liked Tess even though she is a handful, but I never really did warm up to Daniel completely. But like I said before, the whole special funeral business added a little spark to the story and definitely managed to introduce some 'light' moments in what is otherwise mainly a sad story about death, loss and how to deal with it all. It's a fast-paced and entertaining YA contemporary read I'm sure fans of the genre will be able to enjoy. The writing might not be everyone's taste, but I personally felt an instant connection and Things I'm Seeing Without You is definitely worth the try.

Another one I can see making a mark on the YA world. Full review on Goodreads.com

This was a surprising YA read. I really liked the unique story and the lead characters' emotional journeys. The open ended conclusion was satisfying and memorable. Thank you.