A review of “Goodbye Days.”
If you’re in the mood to reminisce on high school best-friendships and first loves and also be struck directly in the feels, then “Goodbye Days,” a 2017 novel by Jeff Zentner, is the perfect read.
The story follows Carver Briggs, a bookish soon-to-be senior at the prestigious Nashville Academy for the Arts. Carver has got serious writing talent and an eccentric group of best friends who call themselves “Sauce Crew,” which is pretty much all he needs.
But amidst juggling college decisions and a summer job, Carver is struck with a life-altering tragedy: the deaths of his three best friends, Mars, Eli and Blake, in a texting-related car accident. The worst part is, Carver feels responsible for the accident because the driver, Mars, was found to be responding to a text when the accident occurred.
As if things couldn’t get any worse for Carver in his grief, the father of one of his deceased friends is considering pressing charges against Carver for his text to Mars that possibly caused the accident: “Where are you guys? Text me back,” a text that seemed harmless at the time.
With his sister heading back to college and his best friends only existing in memories, Carver feels extremely alone starting back at school. The only flickers of light in the darkness are a blossoming friendship with Eli’s girlfriend, the new girl at school, and Blake’s Nana Betsy, who suggests she and Carver partake in a “Goodbye Day” to honor Blake’s memory by doing all his favorite things.
The novel is told from Carver’s perspective, and shifts back and forth between his bleak present reality and the colorful memories he shared with his best friends.
Anyone who’s ever lost a young friend unexpectedly would surely find themselves relating to Zentner’s heart-wrenching description of the grief that Carver experiences and his struggle to understand the fleeting quality of life.
It also obviously warns readers of the dangers of texting while driving, demonstrating how quickly and unapologetically it can rip away lives of anyone, no matter how old or how young, in an instance, and even how there can be criminal implications for texting while driving or texting a friend who is driving knowing they will feel obligated to answer.
“Goodbye Days” is lyrical, poignant, nostalgic and heartbreaking in the most beautiful sort of way. It’s the perfect book to make you smile, cry, and hug your friends a little tighter, because you never know what moment, what memory will be your last with them.
After all, as Nana Betsy tells Carver, “Funny how people move through this world leaving little pieces of their story with the people they meet, for them to carry.”
