What Happened to Goodbye?

Do you ever wish you could be somebody else?  Start over with a new identity?  In What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen, McLean gets that chance when her parents go through a really messy divorce.  She chooses to live with her dad who moves around a lot.  She takes the opportunity to be someone different in each new place.  In one place she is the cheerleader, in the next place she’s the goth girl and so on.  The problem is along the way she has lost who she really is.  In this newest town, she spontaneously uses her real name when she meets her next door neighbor Dave.  She realizes that she kinda wants to figure out who McLean is now.  She will get lots of help along the way from the quirky friends she makes.  



This was a great identity novel.  McLean has gotten a bad deal and she hasn’t chosen the best coping mechanisms.  Her growth is gradual and realistic.  The rest of the characters jump off the pages they are so well described.  In fact, everything is well described.  There was one scene involving a basketball shot, that had me rolling on the floor with laughter I could picture it so well. If you want to know what happened, you will just have to read it yourself.  Enjoy!