Goodbye Stranger

Bridge, Tab, and Emily are best friends, but in middle school things begin to change. Emily has curves, and is on the soccer team, and is exchanging flirty phone pictures with popular Patrick; Tab has developed an interest in feminism and civil rights; and Bridge is becoming friends - but only friends - with Sherm.

The three friends' story is told in short, third person chapters over the course of a few months, but there's another story woven throughout, told in the second person, which takes place over the course of one day; each of these second person chapters is titled simply "Valentine's Day" until near the end when the identity is revealed (if the reader hasn't already guessed).

There are no huge momentous events, but Rebecca Stead show more shows how any event can be huge and momentous to the people experiencing it, especially during the transition period of middle school and early high school. All of the characters are changing, questioning themselves and each other; some friendships grow stronger and others fade or break. The kids have a fair degree of autonomy, but parents and older siblings are a notable presence as well, especially Bridge's brother Jamie and Tab's sister Celeste.

I loved this.

Quotes

They're not your friends anymore. They're both other people now. The girls you can see looking back at you are gone. No one talks about their disappearances. Everyone pretends it's all right. (12)

"I feel like - like there's this part of me that nobody knows. And I don't know how it got there." (Bridge to Jamie, 229)

"I think that when you don't know, you should just wait until you do." (Tab to Bridge, 235)

Who's the real you? The person who did something awful, or the one who's horrified by the awful thing you did? Is one part of you allowed to forgive the other? (257)

Life isn't something that happens to you. It's something you make yourself, all the time. (281) show less

Rebecca Stead is a master of laying stories upon stories. Goodbye Stranger follows Bridge as she and her 2 best friends navigate middle school and life with boys for the first time. Emily suddenly has attention from boys and encouragement from her soccer teammates to flirt. Tab is caught up in the throes and fervor of new-found feminism. And Bridge herself is making a new friend, Sherm, who is a boy. Whether he is more than a friend is murky territory. They are all at such different points in their middle school-ness, and though it seems like this should be the point when they break apart and become separate people (they are separate people, but they are also part of a set), they fight for each other and for their friendship. Sherm show more tells a bit of his own story in the form of letters to his absent grandfather, and the third storyline is a wonderfully executed second person narrative that takes place entirely on Valentine's Day, the culmination date of the other 2 storylines. This book is all about the relationships the characters form, lose, and observe. The friendships in this book, between Bridge, Emily, and Tabitha, between Bridge and Sherm, between "you" and Vinny, between Jaimie (Bridge's brother) and Alex (his frenemy), between Tab and Celeste, even between Emily and Patrick are the meat of the story and the big "what this book is about." So many different kinds of relationships! So many ways that people depend on and grow through the people around them. It's touching without being sentimental. And Bridge and Sherm are butterfly inducing the whole way through. I highly recommend Goodbye Stranger. It is solidly middle grade, but it will hold up well with some spread in the reading age.

Book source: Netgalley show less

Multiple narrators explore friendship in this novel set in New York City. For one character, who remains nameless for much of the novel, the action takes place on a single day. For the other featured friends, the novel follows them from the beginning of the year until Valentine's Day of their seventh grade year. Bridge survived getting hit by a car in third grade, an accident which could have easily killed her. She has a great family and a tight group of friends who each experience their own issues. The characters are well-developed and each have their own individual quirks.
Lots of food for thought. Sometimes the friends seem too good to be true, but it is a deep, kind journey.

Rebecca Stead makes me really, really, really want to write middle-grade and YA fiction.

This was the perfect book. Three 7th grade friends, navigating new all of the weirdness that 7th grade brings, plus a mystery character navigating something else entirely. Realistic situations and dialogue, imperfect characters, and not only a mean girl, but a mean boy, too. Fair is fair, and I loved this book. It made me happy.

Bridget, Tabitha, and Emily have been best friends forever, but middle school will try their friendship in new ways. Bridge has made a new friend, Sherm. She doesn't think she's in love with him, but is it possible to fall in friendship just as powerfully as you fall in love? Tab has discovered feminism, thanks to an inspirational teacher, but she's about to be reminded that she still doesn't know everything. And Em has developed a figure that is getting attention from boys -- including a certain boy, who wants her to send him a certain kind of photo. Meanwhile, in another story line, an unnamed high school girl deals with betrayal and disillusionment in her own friendships.

This book is a really excellent middle-school book, which is show more actually comparatively rare. The characters act in ways consistent with actual middle-schoolers, and deal with issues that face middle-schoolers, and while the issues are addressed frankly, they never venture out of the middle-school realm. And of course, since it's Rebecca Stead, the writing is generally excellent and the characters are distinct and develop over the course of the story. Recommended to both the target audience and to anyone who enjoys well-written juvenile fiction. show less

I chose this book based on how much I love the author's [When You Reach Me], which I've read three times. But in this book, although the author still has a way with creating charming, layered middle-grade characters, she was all over the place, as though this were almost an experimental project. The POV changes between several characters, which is fine. One character has both third-person POV, plus some sections that are him writing letters in first person, which is fine. But another character remains unnamed until the end of the book, with her sections in second person present tense. This character is referring to characters that none of the others do, so it's quite confusing. I figured out who this one was just before it was revealed, show more and it was just one big ... fizzle. show less

Listened to the audio book and the chapters written in second person really threw me, but I loved how it all came together.