Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong is a heartbreaking, but lovely novel about family and growing up.

This novel is written in a series of journal entries. Because of this, the content is quite jumpy and raw. The first couple pages were especially hard to follow as the narration jumps all over the place trying to set the story.

However, this novel is beautifully written. The things that the author deals with throughout are heartbreaking, frustrating, and silly at times, but so real. I liked that there wasn't a tidy ending, as it was just a year in the life of the main character.

One of my favorite features were the pages from her fathers journal where he wrote down little notes about Ruth as a child. These notes were anything from conversations they had, questions she had randomly asked, or any other situation, sprinkled with comments from the father about how amazed he was by you.

Beware, the negatives:
Like I said before, this novel is organized as a journal, which I am not usually a huge fan of. Occasionally I think this format can be done well, but rarely. The content here was just way too jumpy for me.

I felt absolutely nothing for the main character. Where this story was so focused on her and what she was going through, I really wanted to feel empathetic for her... but I just didn't. In fact, I had a hard time feeling anything for any of the characters. Such a bummer!


My favorite passages:
The light coming in through my apartment's bay windows would be pretty, except all it does is illuminate the dust on the floor.

"You're the doctor," I said. "What's your prescription?"
Try not to feel too shitty, was her main piece of advice. Stop, always, at 2.5 drinks. Make a list of good things – however small.

Sharing things is how things get started, and not sharing things is how they end.

"Hello, water," you said, holding the glass against the moonlight and shaking the pills, like they were dice you were ready to roll, in your other hand. "Goodbye, vitamin."


My final thoughts:
While reading, I absolutely could not put this one down. However, because of the format, this ended up just being an okay read for me.

Even so, I would highly recommend that others pick it up! It is most definitely a worthwhile read and I'm sure many others won't have the same irks as me! ;)