A review by heykellyjensen
Goodbye from Nowhere by Sara Zarr
One thing that’s been consistent in Kyle Baker’s life is his family. It’s big, full of personalities, and every summer, they all gather at the Nowhere Farm to celebrate one another. This year, he’s bringing his serious girlfriend Nadia and cannot wait for her to meet them and get to know where he comes from.
Things go well -- Nadia loves his family and they seem to love her. But it’s not too long before everything Kyle thought he knew about himself and his family comes crashing down. His father breaks the news that his mother is having an affair.
Kyle promises not to share that news with his sisters, but the silence begins to kill him. . . and it kills the relationship he has with Nadia, as he becomes distant and cold toward everyone. He’s struggling with how to process the news and it comes to a head the more he begins to think about the woman and child who are connected to the man with whom his mother is having her relationship. They don’t know, and when Kyle meets them both by chance, he’s further devastated carrying the truth around with him.
So he does what feels right: he reaches out to his cousin, who helps him navigate the ups and downs of discovering family secrets and navigating what it means to see someone in a light different than one in which you’ve always held them.
Sara Zarr’s latest book feels a lot like a Sarah Dessen book, and that’s a compliment. There’s tremendous real-world world building, with a complex family relationship that Kyle has to navigate. His relationship with Nadia at the beginning doesn’t last, though what we see of it is fascinating. They’re extremely mature on the outside, joking even about potentially getting married. But it becomes clear how immature Kyle is as he wrestles with the bomb his father delivered. He doesn’t seek support but distance, becoming cold and unapproachable toward someone he had such strong feelings for -- as well as worries about what she might now think about the family he’d shown her to be something out of dream.
This well-paced book is perfect for readers who love family stories, who love flawed but likable main characters -- and Kyle is both of those things, even when he becomes extremely frustrating to watch -- and those who want stories about what happens when the next generation of a family is poised to take over traditions that span their entire lives and the lives of their own parents
Things go well -- Nadia loves his family and they seem to love her. But it’s not too long before everything Kyle thought he knew about himself and his family comes crashing down. His father breaks the news that his mother is having an affair.
Kyle promises not to share that news with his sisters, but the silence begins to kill him. . . and it kills the relationship he has with Nadia, as he becomes distant and cold toward everyone. He’s struggling with how to process the news and it comes to a head the more he begins to think about the woman and child who are connected to the man with whom his mother is having her relationship. They don’t know, and when Kyle meets them both by chance, he’s further devastated carrying the truth around with him.
So he does what feels right: he reaches out to his cousin, who helps him navigate the ups and downs of discovering family secrets and navigating what it means to see someone in a light different than one in which you’ve always held them.
Sara Zarr’s latest book feels a lot like a Sarah Dessen book, and that’s a compliment. There’s tremendous real-world world building, with a complex family relationship that Kyle has to navigate. His relationship with Nadia at the beginning doesn’t last, though what we see of it is fascinating. They’re extremely mature on the outside, joking even about potentially getting married. But it becomes clear how immature Kyle is as he wrestles with the bomb his father delivered. He doesn’t seek support but distance, becoming cold and unapproachable toward someone he had such strong feelings for -- as well as worries about what she might now think about the family he’d shown her to be something out of dream.
This well-paced book is perfect for readers who love family stories, who love flawed but likable main characters -- and Kyle is both of those things, even when he becomes extremely frustrating to watch -- and those who want stories about what happens when the next generation of a family is poised to take over traditions that span their entire lives and the lives of their own parents