Goodbye Stranger
Ratings8
Average rating3.6
As Bridge makes her way through seventh grade on Manhattan's Upper West Side with her best friends, curvaceous Em, crusader Tab, and a curious new friend--or more than friend--Sherm, she finds the answer she has been seeking since she barely survived an accident at age eight: "What is my purpose?"
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Listening to the book, the breakout story of one character written in second person and then a few asides from Sherm was jarring and felt like an interruption. However, as the structure settled in, I thought the stories coalesced beautifully and it was a lovely tale of the growth and change of middle school female friendships. Stead's writing remains a true pleasure to read.
“Life was a too-tall stack of books that had started to lean to one side, and each new day was another book on top.”
A weird little book which I did not enjoy despite that fact that I feel Stead is a competent writer.
Rebecca Stead is high on my list of must read writers, and yet this one didn't have the same magic for me as her others. Even though it's been years since I read When You Reach Me, I think about it often as it left me with much to contemplate and a heart full to bursting. It might be the subject matter of this one, which left me a little queasy in parts and rather terrified to have kids of my own (TEENAGERS ARE MEAN), but I just didn't connect with Goodbye Stranger the way I hoped to. I'll still seek out her future books, though, because despite this slight miss she remains a unique and talented voice in the world of Middle Grade fiction.
