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A review by lulurocks101
Goodbye Stranger by Rebecca Stead
4.0
4.5*
I’m leaving this book feeling a bit emotional - not a cry bubble but the sensation of something hushing in the back of my throat and head. It’s not quite sadness. Maybe melancholy for the human experience.
This is a book that I want my younger self to read. I started it, actually, when I was in middle school (bc of my absolute love for Rebecca Stead) and am not sure why I never finished it (considering I remembered the major plot point of the book). I think I was meant to read it now though. I’m still working through how I understand the title, but I think more so, this book is making me mourn the “ease” of girlhood friendships. I don’t think I experience friendship in this same way anymore and that makes me sad. I’m not sure where things started to complicate themselves - the involvement of other people, dishonesty, mal-intention. It feels like you can’t really have the relationships with these people in the same way that you used to, and it’s a bit heartbreaking. I miss wanting to tell people everything. “The girls you can see looking back at you are gone. No one talks about these disappearances. Everyone pretends it’s all right.” “If you keep your own body out of sight, you could be nine years old again.” “I guess my question is: Is the new you the stranger? Or is the stranger the person you leave behind?” “I feel like - like there’s this part of me that nobody knows. And I don’t know how it got there.”
Can you tell I just finished school and started my big girl job this week and am trying to emotionally decipher my place in the world and reconcile who I am with who I used to be and identify what those differences are? I need to journal.
I’m leaving this book feeling a bit emotional - not a cry bubble but the sensation of something hushing in the back of my throat and head. It’s not quite sadness. Maybe melancholy for the human experience.
This is a book that I want my younger self to read. I started it, actually, when I was in middle school (bc of my absolute love for Rebecca Stead) and am not sure why I never finished it (considering I remembered the major plot point of the book). I think I was meant to read it now though. I’m still working through how I understand the title, but I think more so, this book is making me mourn the “ease” of girlhood friendships. I don’t think I experience friendship in this same way anymore and that makes me sad. I’m not sure where things started to complicate themselves - the involvement of other people, dishonesty, mal-intention. It feels like you can’t really have the relationships with these people in the same way that you used to, and it’s a bit heartbreaking. I miss wanting to tell people everything. “The girls you can see looking back at you are gone. No one talks about these disappearances. Everyone pretends it’s all right.” “If you keep your own body out of sight, you could be nine years old again.” “I guess my question is: Is the new you the stranger? Or is the stranger the person you leave behind?” “I feel like - like there’s this part of me that nobody knows. And I don’t know how it got there.”
Can you tell I just finished school and started my big girl job this week and am trying to emotionally decipher my place in the world and reconcile who I am with who I used to be and identify what those differences are? I need to journal.