When I first came across Six Goodbye We Never Said I was intrigued, not only by the cover, but the concept as well. Grief is a subject that we rarely discuss because it makes so many people uncomfortable and brings up feelings that so often we are told to keep inside. Not only do we rarely talk about it in public settings, but we rarely see this topic touched on in such a vulnerable way in fictional literature, at least in my experience. All that being said, I knew that this was a book that I wanted to add to my collection and experience for myself. Of course that excitement was amplified when I was asked to take part in this blog tour!

Without giving away too much of the story, we meet Naima at a difficult point in her life. Her father has passed away during his tour of duty as a Marine and has recently been cremated. Her stepmother, Nell, is in the process of taking her and her father's ashes to her grandparents house. While trying to work through her grief, she's also working through her General Anxiety Disorder, her Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and her suicide attempt the summer before. How is she supposed to survive without her father around? How could he leave her like this?

At the same time, we meet Dew, who has been waiting for the opportunity to meet Naima since the moment her father talked about her when they met last summer. He truly believes that Naima is his soulmate and the one person who can understand the grief he's going through as well since losing his parents. He loves his foster family without a doubt, but it seems like just when he begins to be happy, he enters a crowd of people and it triggers a panic attack related to his parents as if he's forgetting them and disrespecting their memory. There's something about being able to talk to someone who truly understand what you're going through because they're going through it too.

Naima has no clue what she's in for when she meets Dew, but you can be sure she's in for quite the ride.

What I really enjoyed about this book were the voicemails and emails between Naima and her father. They were very personal and you could feel not only the love that they had for each other, but the hurt and anger that Naima felt as well. Including those in the book added a special touch to what I was reading and I think that it was a great idea. The other thing that I enjoyed was that this really was not a love story. This isn't a romance. I think sometimes we as readers and authors look for romance in a book such as this one to bring up some comfortability and also to have an uplifting moment between characters. You can't always find yourself in romance. More to the point, guys and girls can be friends without it turning into a romantic relationship and I think that Candace portrayed that very well. I struggled to get through Dew's point of view a lot of times and the writing felt a bit disjointed, but I still really enjoyed the read. It brought up a few uncomfortable feelings for me grief wise, but I think that was a good thing.

I think this was a very raw book that showed a lot of honesty. It isn't a light read by any means, but it was a different read for me and took me out of my comfort zone, which was great. It may not have been perfect, but it was still worth the read.

I adored this book and I’m perfectly fine with admitting that. It was adult, non cheesy (though there’s nothing wrong with a little cheese with your romance) and everything WASN’T wrapped up in a neat little bow at the end. Trigger warning for brain injury, paternal death, gaslighting, harassment, emotional manipulation and abuse. In depth review coming soon on my blog!

I enjoyed this Beauty and The Beast retelling because it was different, but I have to be honest and say that I didn’t enjoy it as much as I hoped or expected to. I think the hype got to me, but I’m still looking forward to reading the sequel though because I want more of Grey *swoons*.

DNF @ pg 82. I love Nancy Drew but this...this was painful

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for a free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I can honestly say I enjoyed almost everything about this book. It was both raw and gritty and soft and sweet at the same time. Moving through Simone's journey with her as she navigates her new school after being outed as Positive at her old one certainly leaves you worried. While it's clear she's gotten a new life for herself her with friends who she absolutely adores and a crush who she wants to get closer to, there is still trauma and suspicions left over from what happened to her before. Simone struggles with whether or not she can trust herself and her feelings about those around her, while also navigating coming into both her sexuality and sexual awakening. It's clear that it's not easy, especially for an HIV positive teenage girl. Her dads love her and try to instill in her just how amazing she is, but even they seem to have apprehensions about her starting a dating life and sex. Dating and sex both come with an added weight when you are in Simone's situation. After the fiasco at her last school her dads have made it clear: Telling anyone that she is positive, whether friend, school, adults or otherwise is out of the question. Her safety comes first and it's exactly that safety that is threatened when she begins to start dating her crush Miles. Someone in her school is threatening to out her as Positive and after what Simone's been through, that is the last thing that she wants to happen.

For the majority of the story, we go along with Simone as she navigates daily high school life, the Drama clubs production of Rent, keeping her biggest secret from her two closest friends and crush, and trying to avoid being outed once again. This story tugged at my heartstrings not only because Simone's trauma and fears were so apparent, but because watching her friends and family rally around her was amazing. Everyone's experience won't be like Simone's, but it was great to see someone who had this much support. What I loved about it even more was that the author (Camryn Garrett) made it abundantly clear that just because Simone had loving family and friends didn't mean her life was perfect. Even though they tried and wanted to understand, they couldn't always and that was what left Simone feeling isolated at times.

I did manage to figure out who it was trying to blackmail Simone and they were absolute scum. When the reasoning was exposed, both the surface and underlying reasons, I still didn't feel much sympathy or empathy for the character. Having something horrible happen to you doesn't give you the right to ruin someone's else life and out them.

I'd definitely recommend picking this up when it's released and giving it a read. So glad I was able to get the reading opportunity.

DNF. This just wasn’t for me. No rating because I don’t think it’s fair to give this one a 1 star rating when honestly I just wasn’t a fan of the writing style, which is why I stopped reading.