YA Review: Where Was Goodbye? (Janice Lynn Mather)

Karmen’s family is reeling in the wake of the death by suicide of her older brother, Julian six weeks ago. Julian was living at home, and enrolled in the local college in Nassau, The Bahamas, that their father is also attending. Her father is coping by working extra hard and being away from home, but her mother, who is a therapist, is rarely getting out of bed and isn’t consulting with any of her patience. Karmen has to start her senior year of high school, and can’t make sense of what has happened. Going back the first day, she is glad to see her friend Layla, but has a panic attack. It doesn’t help that a teacher announces to her whole class what has happened, and calls on them to support her. The students seem to do just the opposite, asking intrusive questions, and in one instance, wanting her to be interviewed for a local news show. News crews still hang out by the school, further intruding into her grief. Karmen does see Dr. Rhonda to process her grief, but is not helped by the fact that Julian’s room is kept as a shrine and his shoes are still left on the shoe rack in the hallway. Karmen becomes obsessed with finding out why her brother did what he did, and starts to interview people at the college, as well as people with whom he skateboarded. It’s interesting that the police blamed his death on his involvement with the “counter culture” of skateboarding, but realistic that they don’t really investigate much. At the college, the professors tell her that they can’t divulge personal information, although she knows that her brother was on academic probation. The students are warned against talking to her. As her obsession deepens, Karmen starts wearing Julian’s clothing, skateboarding, and twice in one day takes off and doesn’t let her worried parents know where she will be. The only steadying influence in her life is Layla’s brother, Isaiah, who helps here investigate but also watches out for her and tries to get her to go back to being involved in her previous activities, like attending the church youth group. When Karmen discovers that her mother had been keeping notes on Julian’s mental state for five years, she starts to realize that there were a lot of clues to Julian’s mental state that she missed. How will she find a way to go on without her beloved brother, or without the answers she so desperately craves?