Title: It Started with Goodbye
Author: Christina June
Publication: May 9, 2017
Publisher: Blink
Genre: Teens, YA Fiction
Pages: 272
SYNOPSIS: (From Goodreads)
Sixteen-year-old Tatum Elsea is bracing for the worst summer of her life. After being falsely accused of a crime, she’s stuck under stepmother-imposed house arrest and her BFF’s gone ghost. Tatum fills her newfound free time with community service by day and working at her covert graphic design business at night (which includes trading emails with a cute cello-playing client). When Tatum discovers she’s not the only one in the house keeping secrets, she finds she has the chance to make amends with her family and friends. Equipped with a new perspective, and assisted by her feisty step-abuela-slash-fairy-godmother, Tatum is ready to start fresh and maybe even get her happy ending along the way.
REVIEW:
**A copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.**
I picked up It Started With Goodbye by Christina June to have a light read that was enjoyable, yet not too deep. I got enjoyable, but deep it was. While the book sounds like it’s going to be a teenage drama filled with a love story, friend drama, etc, the story is so much more than that.
It Started With Goodbye follows Tatum as she endures a summer of lost friendship, community service, and life lessons. There are so many lessons anyone, teenagers and older individuals, can learn from. Tatum is this quirky teenager enduring what she feels is the worst possible case scenario for her summer. Constant work, straight home after, and no freedom. For a teenager, that is worst case scenario, but what Tatum finds out is that it’s not all about beach days and hanging with your friends. There are things in life you learn as you make mistakes and experience different situations.
Tatum goes through so much growth in the few months you get to read about her in this book that you can almost picture your own growth period as a teenager. I learned so much my high school years and it’s interesting watching Tatum do the same. Author Christina June did an incredible job of drawing out the emotions of Tatum, her cute cello-playing friend, her new community service best friend, and all the other little characters, including fairy godmother, abuela. These characters are lovable. I love them from the moment I met each one. They are all perfect in their imperfect ways and I felt this was the message June was trying to get across. It doesn’t matter the mistakes we make as long as we learn from them, grow from them, and keep our eyes open to the world around us and the hidden things people are going through that you may not understand. All fantastic messages for everyone to absorb.
With that being said, It Started With Goodbye is the perfect summer read. Pick it up and enjoy the craziness that is Tatum’s life as she goes through one heck of a summer.
STAR RATING: 5/5
It Started with Goodbye by Christina June is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and your local bookstore as of May 9th or you can pre-order your copy online. You will also want to add it to your To Reads list on Goodreads . You can also check out author Christina June on her website here.