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.

This is a hard one to review because I really enjoyed it, but struggled to get into it in the beginning and generally felt like I had to concentrate really hard on each individual sentence to keep up with what was going on. The story is great, the characters are even better, especially Dew and Violet.

The book deals with some under-represented issues, like OCD, PTSD and the loss of a parent. The treatment of each issue is very well done, so I think this is an important book for that reason.

However, I don't know why I found the sentences so difficult to read. Perhaps they're too long? I also found it difficult to follow who was saying what, and what each character was doing in each scene. This gave the overall feeling that there are too many characters. The story and characters kept me engaged enough to persevere through the difficulty reading, so it really is just down to sentence structure I think.

For the record, I really like the draft emails, voicemails and camera narrative. It wasn't a problem for me that the book slips into third person every now and then. I thought this broke things up nicely and I found all of these bits easiest to read.

Warning up front: This book is very triggering for anyone with OCD and/or General Anxiety Disorder. That said, I really liked how the author portrayed Naima's OCD--showing other obsessive compulsions besides the stereotypical cleanliness. OCD is so much more than that, and then to add her grief as an enhanced trigger point brought so much more to the story. Dew's character was more problematic for me. He took on an almost stalkerish persona, oblivious to the many NOs he received, with the excuse that "This is how my mental illness manifests itself." and "I just want to be your friend." It made me feel very uneasy. Besides that, the characters were diverse--POC, pansexual, gender nonbinary. Dew had severe allergies and was a foster kid. This is a book that allows many people to find themselves in the pages, and for that, along with the sad but sweet story, it's one you should put on your shelf this summer.

Six Goodbyes We Never Said is a YA novel of its own special sub. Definitely not a love story—the book focuses on two teens, Namia & Dew. Both teens have suffered major losses in their lives and are trying to navigate their new paths, while also struggling with mental health issues.

I found some of the characters backgrounds of the novel to be heavy hitting in some aspects (Namia’s), but not fleshed out enough in the end. We’re given more information about Dew’s background, but I feel like his story is weaker at points, but the character is far more likable and relatable. However, I believe that’s the point in the end. Namia was dealt a hard life right from the start and had so much trauma to deal with from the beginning. Dew, on the other hand, had only one traumatic episode. I just wish that we learned more about Namia earlier on in the book—she’s so very broken and unlikeable until far too late.

The novel is prefaced with trigger warnings and both characters suffer from several mental health issues. I appreciate that the author, who also suffers from some of these same issues, put this in the book and explores these with her characters. Mental health is not often explored enough in YA books and I think that the author did a fantastic job of weaving it into the story.

I wanted to like this book. Loved the premise, love the title, love the cover. Hate the actual result.
The writing is disjointed which makes it a difficult story to get into. Additionally, one of the main characters, Naima, was wholly unlikable. I really had a tough time finishing this one.

I really liked the topics this book was diving into and how they dealt with mental illness. It was a really sad book in some ways. But the writing is beautiful & I think teens will relate if they have found themselves dealing with these things too.

This was a little different than expected. Right away, the writing caught me off guard and it did not hold my attention well. I don’t know if it was the character development or writing style but I had a hard time finishing this book. I love the idea though!

A lovely story that will break your heart with the most loving characters and plot line. This story covers many areas of mental health and I believe normalizing these ailments is helpful to all.

The concept for this was great, but the execution was lacking. I found it difficult to follow the POV switches, especially since everything was in first person. I feel like there needed to be a more clear distinction between POV switches in order to keep up with everything that was going on.

*Book received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

To be honest...I am a young adult librarian and I just couldn't get into this book even though the topic of anxiety is relatable to me. I didn't actually finish the book, so perhaps it got better, but I found the book confusing and tremendously believable. I wanted to like the book...I just didn't.

Trigger Warnings:
-Suicide, Depression, Parent Loss, Anxiety & PTSD

This book follows Naima and Dew who have both lost their parents. They both have trouble dealing with social issues and making connections. It is told in alternating first person viewpoints.

To me, the book was a bit hard to read. I thought the story had a lot of potential and I was initially very excited to read it. I did have some feelings through the book, but it wasn't as engrossing as I had hoped it would be. I thought that the character's mental health wasn't represented that well, and it just felt like it was textbook character traits.as opposed to something real.

I felt like overall the book just missed the mark when it had great potential.

I received a copy of Six Goodbyes We Never Said from Netgalley in exchange for an honest and fair review.

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
Thanks NetGalley!

As the storyline says, this is no love story. This book is about two teens trying to piece it all together after the loss of a parent. It portrays mental illness well for the most part. Some parts I definitely didn't agree with in terms of the portrayal. This coming from someone that also suffers from mental illness.

Naima wasn't easy to like, but I believe that was on purpose. Dew was incredibly sweet and easy to adore.

This was such a great book! So heartwarming!
This book is about two teenagers trying to navigate through their grief and loss of their parents when they happen to cross paths.
The two end up finding in each other a comfort and hope in what felt like a hole of never ending despair and anger.
So many youth in this day and age suffer from mental illness in one form or another and I thought this book brought light to that!
Great book great characters!!
Thank you

I won’t rate it just because I could not finish it.
Once I started reading it, it didn’t take long before I felt like I just couldn’t follow for some reason. I was confused at some points as to who was who and why it would change from one person to another and there were other things that were put in that just didn’t make sense to me. I tried to finish. I got to about 41% in and just decided that I couldn’t.

I really hope that others do not get confused or thrown off the way I did. Im sure there will be many who love the story and I hope they find it so they can fall in love with the book. :)

Stars: 2.5
Loved the cover, loved the title, even loved a couple of the characters *cough Dew and Violet cough cough*, but did not love this book. The writing felt very disjointed to me, I did not care for one of the main characters (Naima), and the ending just didn’t carry the weight that I thought it should given the subject matter. There was a lot about this book that confused me, and I am not sure that I liked the way that mental illness is portrayed. I got the impression that Naima is supposed to be this prickly and guarded, yet lovable individual, but for the most part, I thought she was cruel and hurtful and incredibly selfish. I tried to like her, I really did, it just didn’t happen. Maybe this book will really resonate with someone, but that someone wasn’t me.