Alexis is a Nebraska high school senior. She is hoping to go to MIT, but she has not been doing well since her younger brother Tyler recently killed himself. Her mother isn’t coping at all, and her father has left the family some time ago for another woman. Lex tries to get her mother to sort herself out and she is just about holding her life together, but she is angry. This story is about her working through her issues and figuring out why Tyler did it. She wonders if she is going crazy because she starts to see his ghost and she has very vivid dreams about him. They were close, and she blames herself for not spotting the warning signs and not doing enough to prevent his death. 

It’s a slow moving book. Alexis spends a lot of time reminiscing. She also has long conversations with friends, and she engages in repeated reflections on herself. She is doing a lot of processing, and since her main subject is math, she often focuses on calculations, which is quirky and charming. We see how for several years, she was acting as a parental figure for her brother, and taking on responsibility. We see how close their relationship was, but also how Tyler become independent and was dealing with his life on his own. So readers get some sense of the pain Alexis experiences on losing her brother.

It isn’t particularly clear why Tyler killed himself.  There’s no dark secret that gets revealed. Although their family life had lots of problems, they were no more serious than those of many other families. We do find that he previously took an overdose, so he has a history. But it wasn’t predetermined that he would kill himself.  He left some clues as to what was on his mind, and Alexis tries to solve the puzzle. Things get more complicated when Tyler’s friend Patrick also kills himself. Alexis tries to work out the connection. She does figure out some parts, but part of her learning process is coming to accept that she won’t ever really know.

The Last Time We Say Goodbye is a somber book that helps readers think though the problem of teen suicide. It includes some statistics and a discussion of risk factors. Mainly it is about the emotions of those left behind, and how it is possible to move on. The performance of the unabridged audiobook by Julia Whelan is subdued but anxious, managing to be mournful all the way through. Given that some of the most popular young adult fiction these days deals with the most serious subjects, this title has the potential to be popular, surprising as that may be.

© 2015 Christian Perring

Christian Perring, Professor of Philosophy, Dowling College, New York