YA review: Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner

Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner

Carver sent his best friend Mars a text message asking, “Where are you guys?” Mars was driving a couple friends to pick Carver up, and first responders found a partially typed reply on Mars’s phone at the crash site where all three were killed.

Carver is now wracked with guilt, thinking that he is responsible for the deaths of his three friends because he sent the text. To Carver, it feels like nearly everyone else blames him, too. Mars’ father is a local judge, and he wants Carver prosecuted for the deaths of the three boys.

Then the grandmother of one of the boys, Blake, makes an unusual request: She wants Carver to sit in for her grandson for a day while she has a chance to say goodbye. Soon, Carver is having similar “goodbye days” with Eli’s parents and Mars’s father.  These are as awkward as you might imagine, but they also are a salve for all the characters. Carver’s guilt begins to ease, and the tragedy of loss and grief slowly turns to healing. Author Jeff Zentner has created characters that you care about, and Goodbye Days takes you for an emotional ride as we read about the fallout after a tragic incident of texting and driving.