Review: Six Goodbyes We Never Said

Six Goodbyes We Never Said by Candace Ganger
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

“𝓛𝓲𝓯𝓮 𝓲𝓼𝓷'𝓽 𝓮𝓪𝓼𝔂, 𝓓𝓮𝔀, 𝓑𝓾𝓽 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓯𝓲𝓷𝓭 𝓪 𝔀𝓪𝔂 𝓽𝓸 𝓯𝓮𝓮𝓵 𝓳𝓸𝔂 𝓽𝓱𝓻𝓸𝓾𝓰𝓱 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓹𝓪𝓲𝓷. 𝓘𝓽'𝓼 𝓹𝓪𝓻𝓽 𝓸𝓯 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓙𝓸𝓾𝓻𝓷𝓮𝔂”

TL;DR:
What happens: Naima is dealing with both the loss of her father and her OCD and GAD. She is spending the summer with her grandparents and meets Dew, who also recently lost both of his parents and was adopted. He is dealing with his own anxiety and uses a voice recorder to help him process. The two meet and their friendship grows as they both help each other work through grief.
Plot: Not much happens, but it doesn't have to
Writing: A little convoluted and complex, but overall elegant
Characters: Not my favorite; slightly immature

Pros:
-mental health/anxiety representation
-great slow-build friendship, not something you see often!
-beautiful sections of writing and interesting mixed media format

Cons:
-characters seem a bit more immature than their actual age- understood that some PTSD, grief, anxiety, etc plays into this but at least part seems to come from the writing/characterization
-somewhat unlikeable characters, most especially Hiccup the dog!! Dew is mostly chill but has a weird obsession with Naima at the beginning
-weird skips/characters only mentioned, but never seen on screen (Christian?)
-far longer/drawn out than it needed to be

I received an advance readers copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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