Blog Tour: Six Goodbyes We Never Said by Candace Ganger

Six Goodbyes We Never Said by Candace Ganger is a YA, Mental Health Contemporary out now!

“Two teens meet after tragedy and learn about love, loss, and letting go

Naima Rodriguez doesn’t want your patronizing sympathy as she grieves her father, her hero—a fallen Marine. She’ll hate you forever if you ask her to open up and remember him “as he was,” though that’s all her loving family wants her to do in order to manage her complex OCD and GAD. She’d rather everyone back the-eff off while she separates her Lucky Charms marshmallows into six, always six, Ziploc bags, while she avoids friends and people and living the life her father so desperately wanted for her.

Dew respectfully requests a little more time to process the sudden loss of his parents. It’s causing an avalanche of secret anxieties, so he counts on his trusty voice recorder to convey the things he can’t otherwise say aloud. He could really use a friend to navigate a life swimming with pain and loss and all the lovely moments in between. And then he meets Naima and everything’s changed—just not in the way he, or she, expects.

Candace Ganger’s Six Goodbyes We Never Said is no love story. If you ask Naima, it’s not even a like story. But it is a story about love and fear and how sometimes you need a little help to be brave enough to say goodbye.”

Published: 24 September 2019

Publisher: Wednesday Books

Genre: Young Adult Contemporary

Pages: 320

How I Read It: eARC from Publisher

*Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All of my reviews contain my honest opinions only and are not influenced in any way.*

This book does have triggers for mental health related to PTSD, OCD, grieving, and identity. If any of these topics are sensitive to you, please be cautious in picking this book up.

With that being said, I think this was a well-written story encompassing a girl’s journey with mental health. It’s a touching plot that grabs you in for a ride when the main character’s father passes away overseas. She’s a military brat (AKA growing up in a military household) struggling with the hardships of him being away from home.

I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars. I think it’s the perfect end-of-summer read for fans of strong, YA mental health contemporaries. It’s one of those books that will leave you thinking and analyzing your own life in the process. The book overall is a little slower to get through, but I feel like it’s more related to the density of the content rather than boredom.

I think it is very important to read the Author’s Note PRIOR to starting the book just because it gives you a clearer background into the author’s storytelling process.

“Candace Ganger is the author of Six Goodbyes We Never Said and The Inevitable Collision of Birdie & Bash as well as a contributing writer for HelloGiggles and obsessive marathoner. Aside from having past lives as a singer, nanotechnology website editor, and world’s worst vacuum sales rep, she’s also ghostwritten hundreds of projects for companies, best-selling fiction and award-winning nonfiction authors alike. She lives in Ohio with her family.”