Goodbye Stranger By Rebecca Stead

It’s the start of seventh grade. Three best friends both are trying to figure things out. Bridge, the main narrator, is a philosophical girl who survived from a freak accident and is trying to figure out why she is still alive. She is also trying to figure out what love is and what it means. Emily, a girl already grown up who has a sort of boyfriend, and divorced parents, is going through a hard time after people see a picture of her that wasn’t meant for social media and was meant for one person. Tabitha (Tab), a feminist trying to make a statement on women rights, after meeting a French teacher who is also a feminist, she looks up to. “She sees through everybody’s games, or so she tells the world.” Rebecca Stead (writer of Goodbye Stranger) wrote to describe Tab. Sherman (Sherm), another narrator, writes letters to his grandfather through his chapters. He doesn’t end up giving the letters to his grandfather, but makes them for him if he were. His grandfather left his family and his grandmother, and now lives in New Jersey. His grandfather contacts Sherm on occasion but Sherm never responds. He meets Bridge and wonders what its like to fall for a girl… Just as a friend? Bridge is unsure what it is like to fall for a boy. These four characters go through changes and definitely drama leading up to one specific date, February fourteenth: Valentines Day.

Inexplicably, the narrator who is unknown till the end of the book, narrates her whole experience on Valentines Day. She decided as she left home to walk to school, that she wasn’t going to go and she needed a day off. Throughout her story she talks a lot about her friends and the drama they are experiencing together. Even when her mom calls worried, she doesn’t want to talk to her mom, she just wants to be alone for the day. So she leaves the playground she was staying at and goes home, only to go outside again because her neighbor came by and she doesn’t want to be seen. It was very amusing to think that maybe the two narrators (Bridge and Sherm) would come across or acknowledge the narrator who is unknown? In the end it surprised me who the person was that was narrating many chapters. To me during her narration, she seemed like a person who did everything everyone else asked her to. When you read about her in other people’s narrations, she seemed like a confident person who was a role model. This is to show that a person can be completely different on the inside verses how they act on the out.

Praise for Goodbye Stranger
This book can teach kids to think before you do anything on electronics wether it’s posting on social media, or texting a picture to someone. It taught me to not be so nervous to go into seventh grade. I would recommend this book for kids ages 13 and up if you don’t ask permission from an adult first. There was one swear word, but this book’s setting is in middle school so it’s for older kids. Overall this is a ‘must read’ book. Every narrator has something interesting to the story to make it complete. Every narrator’s chapter fascinated me when I learned more about their perspective, problems, and take on life. Rebecca Stead is a great author who’s books I end up reading over and over again. She can keep her reader’s interested, entertained, and learning. Praise for Goodbye Stranger’s message and Rebecca Stead for bringing characters to life and creating a story I will never forget.