I fully admit that 99.9% of the time I am a romance reader. There is something about YA fiction written from the male perspective that resonates in my soul. Last year, I picked up The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner after some buzz around Instagram. I was completely immersed in that world and knew that Jeff would become one of my favorite authors. When I was gifted the ARC of Goodbye Days, I didn't realize that this book would change me the way my GOAT The Perks of Being a Wallflower has. I'm going to be completely honest, I had no idea what Goodbye Days was about. I just knew I had to read it because Jeff wrote it.

Carver Briggs is attending the funerals of his three best friends. He wasn't involved in their accident but feels wholly responsible. Goodbye Days takes place after the months of the accident. Jeff writes grief like I've never read before. You can't help but ache for Carver, Nana Betsy and Jesmyn. Their loss is so severe that it was hard to read but I could not stop.

It's really hard to write anything without giving the book away, but man, I was hooked. I allowed myself five days to read Goodbye Days and I'm glad I did. I was able to savor this haunting, poetic and heartfelt book the way it should be read. You don't just read this book, you feel it. As a thirty-something mother, maybe it's my emotions that got me invested in Goodbye Days. The emotional connection I felt with Carver was staggering. I cried with him, laughed with him, cringed with him.

Goodbye Days is a book I wish was written when I was in high school in the late 90's early 2000's. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who wishes to get away from the mundane overdone tropes of romance for something real and special. That's what Goodbye Days is....special.

Warning: as great of read of a read this book it will make you cry!

**Thanks to NetGalley for providing this complimentary ebook in exchange for my honest review**

Carver's three best friends died in a car accident and he's awaiting word to see if he'll be charged with murder got sending a text to the driver at the time of the accident. He's having panic attacks, filled with remorse and sadness. His only friend is buddy Eli's girlfriend, who's also drowning in grief. When Blake's grandmother asks Carver for a goodbye day, to remember and celebrate her grandson's life, he reluctantly agrees. Within the next month, he'll have GOODBYE DAYS will each friend's family.

Jeff Zentner wrote one of the best books on grief I've ever read. There's no right or wrong way to grieve, everyone has to figure out what will work best. GOODBYE DAYS illustrates how each individual grieves together and apart. Some turn to religion. Others become vengeful. One family is breaking.

I loved the Carver's family relationships, the closeness he shared with his protective sister Georgia, his supportive parents and the push/pull of a young man on the brink of adulthood wanting to keep is parents distant and close at the same time. Georgia spurring Carver to therapy proved to be pivotal to his recovery.

Zentner gave Carver an authentic voice. His writing was kept me engaged throughout the story. The diverse cast of characters touched on gender and racial bias without a heavy hand.

GOODBYE DAYS has my highest recommendation.

Wow!!!! Besides Bright Side written by Kim Holden, no book has ever made me cry so much as Goodbye Days. While the story itself is intriguing, its the author's writing that has evoked such emotions. I could feel every emotion Carver experienced and was his biggest cheerleader. I wished I knew the character personally and still feel invested in his life. My students are in for a treat despite the book's topic of death. Imagine being that age and dealing with all that guilt, feeling isolated and uncertainty. I am now a fan of this author and will support his future books.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random Houses Children’s and Crown Books for Young Readers for the ARC, Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner. I was compelled to read The Serpent King three times and with Zentner’s 2nd book, Goodbye Days, I will certainly be reading this book multiple times. Carver Briggs loses his 3 best friends with just one text, Where are you guys, text me back. With this ripped from the headlines story, a teen loses everything he loved - his best friends known as The Sauce Crew. Teen readers will deeply feel Carver’s palpable grief, his tremendous loss, and also the anger, rage, and unforgiving nature of some of his best friend’s family members. When Nana Betsy asks Carver to help her celebrate her grandson, Blake, in a Goodbye Day, both Nana and Carver learn things they did not know about Blake. It is a deeply moving day but one that Carver needed to deal with the loss of his best friend. Even though we never “meet” Blake, Mars and Eli; Carver’s memories of how they each met, each of their goodbye days, and Carver’s celebrations of their Sauce Crew antics, made these guys real and very exceptional to me. I knew them and loved them like Carver did. Carver navigated his grief and self-hatred by leaning on strong characters: Blake’s sister, Georgia was remarkable and supportive while Jesmyn (dated Eli) was such a new, special friend along with honest psychiatrist, Dr. Mendes. Teens will be passing this book around; there is so much they will relate to with Carver’s loneliness, despair, and turmoil but he is also someone they will root for, love, and hold tight in their hearts. Highly recommended for teens and adults.

This author wrote one of my all time favorite books...The Serpent King. If you have not read that one just go now. I'll wait.

So my expectations for this one were pretty high.

And it made me feel like an old hateful woman. I'll get to why in a bit.

(This is not a spoiler either-so cool your drawers) Carver sent a text to his three best friends. Where are you guys? Text me back
That text is more than likely what caused his friends to be in a fatal accident. So Carver has the guilt. Then he finds out that he may actually face charges of negligent homicide for contributing to their deaths.

I hope no one reading this is still texting and driving. Because it gets me ragey.
BUT the book is done well in telling the young adult world the dangers of that stuff. It hurts. Jeff Zentner brings hurt to the table like no other young adult author that I've ever read.
He writes the feelings that Carver and the remaining family members go through very much in a way that made even my hateful heart break.

Then I kinda got to the point where I felt like my feelings were being deliberately manipulated and I felt like the line got crossed.
Another thing that really bothered me in this book was the fact that these boys were supposed to be seventeen. Then we get flashbacks (yes, I do know that some of them were years old)..where I felt like they were twelve. I have a teenage boy and have raised two others. I know what dumb-butts they can be..but then they tell the fart jokes and then you have a passage where the main character sounds like an educated adult? I reflect on the mundane rituals, laid end to end, that form a life. We work to make money and then hopefully use that money to buy ourselves memories with the people we love. Simple things that bring us joy.

There was good in this book though, no insta-love and no common tropes. Zentner is way better than that. I'm torn on how to rate this so I'm just going with the middle ground and giving it three stars. I'll still read anything he writes.
Don't milk me for tears next go round though.

Never have I ever cried through an ENTIRE book. Until Goodbye Days. This was definitely a very personal 5-star rating for me. It wasn't a perfect book, and there were even parts I really didn't like (mostly Adair and the Judge), but, my gosh, on the whole it was beautiful.

When I read Jeff Zentner's debut, The Serpent King, I wasn't sure I'd ever read a book that touched so closely on my own life experiences. I was wrong. This was literally home. It is set in my current home of Nashville, and one of the main characters is even from Jackson, TN, where I grew up.

Goodbye Days deals with grief and guilt, love and loss, healing and forgiveness. It was raw and real, painfully honest and true. It wasn't an easy book to breeze through for me, because it was so emotionally draining. But if you're in Nashville, you should do what I did... Go grab some Bobbie's Dairy Dip and head to Percy Warner to read this book. You'll feel like Carver and the Sauce Crew are right there with you.

“ I wish I’d held on to every moment with him the way a drowning person holds life preserver.”

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Summary: Carver Briggs never imagine that sending a text message would change his life. However, with one text message, he accidently caused the death of his three best friends. Carver has no idea how to move with his life with his debilitating panic attacks, the threat of criminal charges, and the hatred of almost everyone at school. So, what does Carver have? He has his new therapist who helps him try to find peace, his friend’s ex-girlfriend who he forms a bond with, and his friend, Blake’s, grandmother who wants to help find a form a peace. Carver and Blake’s grandmother have a “goodbye day” with each other as a way to find a sort of peace. As Carver tries more of these days he struggles with whether he deserves to be forgiven, how he will ever find happiness, and whether he deserves punishment for his actions.

Review: I adored the honesty of this novel. Death and grief aren’t easy, whether you feel like it was your fault, or it was just someone you know passing away. This is a difficult process that doesn’t really ever end or have simple solutions. I love that Zentner realized that and put it in this book. We see different versions of the grieving process from these different families- some try and focus on the good times they had, others get buried in their anger, some play the blame game, and some find themselves rooted in depression. I love that all of these characters felt realistic in their emotions and justified. No one was looked at as not handling their pain “correctly.” Along with that, this grieving process doesn’t just end in real life, nor in this book. This aspect made the book a very human and realistic portrayal of losing a loved one.

This honesty also came across in his characterization choices. Carver isn’t just one emotion- some days are good and some are bad. I thought his anxiety was really well done. It has its waves. I thought Zentner’s description of the thoughts during panic attacks was EXTREMELY well done. As someone who has had a panic attack before in their life, I think the portrayal of actions was honest. Again, everyone has panic attacks differently, but this felt very much rooten in truth. I’m not sure if this is an own voices, I tried to find info on the author, but I came up fruitless. If it is not, I believe it came from truthful experiences.

I loved the portrayal of teenage boys in this novel too. I think many authors struggling creating a teenage boy that feels honest. Like not one that is just a stereotype- nerd/popular jerk/gay best friend, etc. I think these boys felt real and honest. In some ways, I wish we saw more of them in this text. Each of them were unique and spoke and reacted honestly. The only one I had issues visualizing at times was Eli.

The only small complaint I have is in Jesmyn. I’m just not sure how I feel about her. In some ways, she feels too perfect. This hot girl who wants to hang out with you and forms an instabond. In a way, she was too perfect. However, I LOVED the scene at the end where she stood up for herself. GIRL GET IT! Personally, I wasn’t feeling a romance between them, but I’m not sure if you are suppose to. I would love to find out if Zentner wants you to want them together or not. I just couldn’t get over the squishiness of weird to ship them.

Random Positive Thoughts:
Diversity: LGBT, Asian, African American, Anxiety (again, not sure if that anxiety is own voices or not)
That scented candle line had me in stitches! NOTE: I think handsome man, not grandpa personally
This book portrays therapy very positively and I’m all here for that
Grandma Betsy is the cutest. More old people bonding with teens please
I loved the descriptions of the different goodbye days, felt very cinematic
I liked that phones were important. It’s 2017. They should be
Judge Marshall was SAVAGE. It was great
Finally, BOY CAN WRITE. This book is PHENOMENALLY written, I understand why he won the William C Morris Award

Few Favorite Quotes:

“I wish I could gather into a stadium every single person on Earth who’d ever be inclined to express their sympathies for my loss at any time. Then… everyone would express their sympathies simultaneously for thirty seconds… And then I’d be done one and for all with the slow trickle”

‘“ You made a mistake. But this thing needs at least one survivor. You owe it to Blake to survive this.”’

“I’m not a stamp collection that someone leaves in a will, got it? I am not a piece of property to be passed down.”

“We assume that it’s better to survive things, but the ones who don’t survive don’t have to miss anyone. So sometimes I don’t know which is better”

ARC received from Netgalley. All quotes are from uncorrected proof. Thanks Netgalley!

They were the "Sauce Crew". A band of talented young men, who shared a bond as thick as brothers. Three of them were lost in a car crash suspected to be due to texting and driving. The other member of the crew being the one who had sent the text.
I watch them lower the third member of Sauce Crew into the ground. I am Sauce Crew now.
Have you ever lost someone, and wished you had had just one more day? One more day to say "goodbye"? One more day to tell them and show them you loved them? I was really able to relate to this want, this desire to say goodbye. I lost a very close college friend in a plane crash; we were 31. My last communication with him was a Valentine's Day card he sent me. I never thought I would never see him again. I felt so robbed of the opportunity to make sure he knew I cared, and that I valued him and his friendship. Yes, I could totally relate to this book and the need for a goodbye day.
I guess we'd try to give life to his story for one more day. Pay tribute. Say goodbye.
This book was sad. It really could not have been anything but sad under the circumstances of its premise. I cried so many tears. I cried tears as someone who missed the opportunities to say goodbye. I cried tears as a mother, who couldn't imagine burying her child. I am crying right now as I write this review, because it actually hit me pretty hard.
Penance. Stories. Goodbye days.
I love Zentner's story telling. The Serpent King was one of my top 2016 reads, and this was one of my top 2017 anticipated reads. He has this ability to craft a story with so much feeling, and filled with characters that worm their way into your heart and soul. It was so painful being in Carver's head following the accident, and the funerals, and the fallout. I just wanted to reach into the page and hug him so many times. Thank goodness Zentner gave Carver some support in the form of his sister, Georgia (who was pretty awesome), Jesmyn, his very loving parents, Dr. Mendez, and the most awesome character in the book (in my opinion), Nana Betsy.
We build him a monument of words we've written on the walls of our hearts. We make the air vibrate with his life.
Each goodbye day had a very unique tone, but each was quite painful in its own way. Blake's had some very big reveals for both Nana Betty and Carver. Eli's was tense and awkward, but it also had one of the most beautiful soliloquies from Eli's dad. I think I was bawling at the end of all that. But, the goodbye day for Mars was the most painful. It was tough getting through them.
I never imagined that my history would include the full history of my son, start to finish. But it does now.
Overall: Another amazing book by the wonderful Jeff Zentner, made my heart swell and my face wet with tears.

Goodbye Days was a gut wrenching, heart breaking, book that somehow leaves you with hope. Carver’s three best friends are killed in a car accident on the way to pick him up from work. Carver blames himself because he had texted them while they were on the way to get him. Not only does he blame himself, others in the community including some of the parents of the dead boys, blame him as well. Carver is also haunted by the fact that he didn’t get to tell his best friends goodbye, so he decides to hold goodbye days for each of his friends. He invites members of the family of each of his friends to participate. The goodbye days are spent doing some of their favorite things, eating their favorite foods, sharing memories, and hanging out at their favorite spots. These were my favorite parts of the book. Reading about each of the boys and their unique talents and qualities was so hard to read. In all of the goodbye days, Carver learned something new about his friends, and the parents learned more about their son. This book explores the deep and unbreakable bond of friendship, how important love and support from family is, and the healing power of forgiving others as well as yourself.

I loved The Serpent King, and this is equally as powerful, if not more, and equally as beautifully written, but also completely different. The relationships are so beautifully drawn, the sense of place so strong. I recently did not finish a hotly anticipated upcoming YA because it was just so...depressing. This one seems like it should be, and it definitely shredded my heart to pieces more than once, but it was so compelling and there was a sense of hope and I couldn't put it down. Jeff Zentner becomes an auto-buy author for me with this book.

4.5 stars.

Wow. This book examines grief through the lens of Carver, a boy who lost his three best friends in a texting and driving accident. He blames himself, because he's almost certain he sent the text that caused it.

Yep. It's going to make you cry.

Carver's grief is tangible. He blames himself. He withdraws - easily enough, since his closest friends are gone. He starts having panic attacks and sees a counselor. I really appreciated the positive portrayal of therapy here. We don't see that enough in YA.

But isn't just about loss. It's about incredible friendships. Healthy, beautiful friendships between teen boys. It's so rare that we that in fiction. Just boys that care about each other more than anything and want to do life together. Even though Mars, Blake, and Eli are dead, each of their characters are so fully realized through flashbacks and the shared experiences of the people that knew them.

Carver's goes on "goodbye days" with each of the boys' families, and they all deal with their grief in a variety of ways. Some want to blame him. Some just want to hear about the pieces of their sons they missed out on. It broke my heart, but I think it was a super realistic examination of the different ways we experience grief.

This made me a fan of the author - it was really well-written and now I'm glad to have a copy of THE SERPENT KING. Bumping it up on my TBR.

(I've seen Zentner compared to John Green before, and I think it's totally valid. This was an obvious read-alike to Looking for Alaska. I think I even liked it better.)

Jeff Zentner set out to write a love letter to Nashville. He accomplished this so well – so precisely – that I am considering uprooting my life in New York City to settle there as soon as possible, if only to surround myself with what he must see: the art flowing through the city with a pervasiveness rivaled only by the wind, and the characters he creates, whom I can only hope are representative of the living beings inhabiting his Utopia.

Goodbye Days, Zentner’s highly-anticipated follow-up to last year’s breakout debut The Serpent King hits every possible high note with poignancy and grace. Zentner, through his novel, tackles so many of the issues that underlie our society naturally that it would seem forced if he handled them in his writing in any way other than so naturally. Characters are gay without having to out themselves. Characters struggle with anxiety, PTSD, and depression, without having to label or diagnose it with certainty or with a magical mental cure. Characters are religious, characters are humble, characters are diverse and beautiful and loved and loving. Characters are raw, intelligent, a little MPDG for my tastes in some ways (I’m looking at you, Jesmyn-during-a-thunderstorm), but never without their own personalities, dreams, and dignity.

The issues within this story run so congruent to real life, I forget that this isn’t real life. I forget that these characters weren’t created in the imagination of a talented and poetic storyteller. I forget that the three best friends of main character Carver Briggs will not wake up not only because they are dead in the story, but also because they are not actually real to begin with, no matter how clear and seemingly-tangible Zentner creates them.

The story is also one in dire need of telling. Carver Briggs has sent a text message that his friend Mars was in the process of replying to when Mars crashed his car into the back of a stopped eighteen wheeler, shearing off the top of Mars’ Nissan, and taking the lives of Mars, Eli, and Blake with it.

Carver must navigate his life in the immediate aftermath of this ruinous experience, and we play witness to it all. He begins his senior year, struggles with college admissions, reaches out to the strangers around him to try desperately to grasp one hand he may begin to call “friend,” and faces his most immediate and dangerous antagonist: his own raging guilt.

Carver’s journey is portrayed elegantly, brutally, and honestly. Mental and emotional turmoil, therapy and medication, grief and despair – all are given their rightful space in this novel without becoming preachy. Zentner doesn’t purport to have the answers. Rather, he writes a love letter not only to Nashville, but also to all of the ways people can help, hurt, and even heal each other. His novel may exist as a single snapshot in the broad scope of history, but because of “the universe’s caprice,” I am better for having gotten to pick this up and read it.

To you, Jeff Zentner, I say thank you.

To you, potential reader, I use Carver’s words to say: “I believe we are stories of breath and blood and memory and that some things never finally end.” I hope you choose to read this novel. I hope. I hope. I hope.