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A review by _mery98_
He Forgot to Say Goodbye by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
4.0
4/5
I read He Forgot To Say Goodbye two years ago and it was the second book of Benjamin Alire Saenz that I've read since Aristotle and Dante.
Told from a dual perspective, it focuses on a brief period of time in the lives of Ramiro Lopez and Jake Upthegrove, two 17-year-old boys living in El Paso, Texas, who were both abandoned by their fathers. Jake lives in the “Oh-Wow West Side” with his mother and stepfather, dealing with an anger management problem and his shallow parents. Ramiro, or Ram, lives in a working-class barrio called “Dizzy Land” and worries about his brother, whose drug problem is becoming a greater and greater concern. The story is almost entirely character-driven, so for the sake of not spoiling what few plot points there are, I won’t go into much detail about them.
The style of writing is incredible. They have similar but distinct voices, and they are true to life. I can’t remember the last time I read a book with such realistic, well-developed characters. Their thoughts and emotions are so complex, I begin to wonder how Saenz manages to so completely take on the voice of someone else. It’s less like you’re reading their thoughts and more like they’re sitting right in front of you, telling you the story.
That segues into my next point and main criticism, which is verb tense. The tense of the book switches from past to present all over the place in the same passages, sometimes even in the same sentence. It can be jarring, but I know it was done on purpose. Anyone who has ever taken a decent English class knows that in any formal writing, the number one rule of grammar is that the same verb tense should be maintained. Saenz clearly knows this-I mean, the man teaches creative writing and has a Ph.D. in American Literature. The effect is to make the storytelling more natural, and, as I mentioned before, seem like the characters are really talking to you.
There are times when the teenage characters don’t really sound like teenagers, such as when they are being deep, handwriting notes, or conversing with each other. They are either too philosophical or unrealistically open with each other. And the girls in the novel can’t seem to stop calling to protagonists “beautiful”. Such occurrences are rare, but when they happen, they stick out like a sore thumb.
I had a hard time believing the near love-at-first-sight type deal between Jake and a certain female character, and I felt like the minor female characters all spoke in exactly the same way. I appreciated that the conflict between Jake and his mother wasn’t tied up in a neat bow, but I did think it dropped from climactic to barely existent with very little falling action, which would have made it more believable. I also think that the book description suggests more friendship between Ram and Jake than there actually is. Friendship is certainly a major theme in the novel, but the two never become close friends. In fact, they hardly even become friends until the last few chapters. I should also mention that there is an element of tragedy, so if you don’t like reading about death, this may not be the book for you.
He Forgot To Say Goodbye is a great book. It has flaws, but in the context of such amazing, interesting characters, they are easily overlooked.
I read He Forgot To Say Goodbye two years ago and it was the second book of Benjamin Alire Saenz that I've read since Aristotle and Dante.
Told from a dual perspective, it focuses on a brief period of time in the lives of Ramiro Lopez and Jake Upthegrove, two 17-year-old boys living in El Paso, Texas, who were both abandoned by their fathers. Jake lives in the “Oh-Wow West Side” with his mother and stepfather, dealing with an anger management problem and his shallow parents. Ramiro, or Ram, lives in a working-class barrio called “Dizzy Land” and worries about his brother, whose drug problem is becoming a greater and greater concern. The story is almost entirely character-driven, so for the sake of not spoiling what few plot points there are, I won’t go into much detail about them.
The style of writing is incredible. They have similar but distinct voices, and they are true to life. I can’t remember the last time I read a book with such realistic, well-developed characters. Their thoughts and emotions are so complex, I begin to wonder how Saenz manages to so completely take on the voice of someone else. It’s less like you’re reading their thoughts and more like they’re sitting right in front of you, telling you the story.
That segues into my next point and main criticism, which is verb tense. The tense of the book switches from past to present all over the place in the same passages, sometimes even in the same sentence. It can be jarring, but I know it was done on purpose. Anyone who has ever taken a decent English class knows that in any formal writing, the number one rule of grammar is that the same verb tense should be maintained. Saenz clearly knows this-I mean, the man teaches creative writing and has a Ph.D. in American Literature. The effect is to make the storytelling more natural, and, as I mentioned before, seem like the characters are really talking to you.
There are times when the teenage characters don’t really sound like teenagers, such as when they are being deep, handwriting notes, or conversing with each other. They are either too philosophical or unrealistically open with each other. And the girls in the novel can’t seem to stop calling to protagonists “beautiful”. Such occurrences are rare, but when they happen, they stick out like a sore thumb.
I had a hard time believing the near love-at-first-sight type deal between Jake and a certain female character, and I felt like the minor female characters all spoke in exactly the same way. I appreciated that the conflict between Jake and his mother wasn’t tied up in a neat bow, but I did think it dropped from climactic to barely existent with very little falling action, which would have made it more believable. I also think that the book description suggests more friendship between Ram and Jake than there actually is. Friendship is certainly a major theme in the novel, but the two never become close friends. In fact, they hardly even become friends until the last few chapters. I should also mention that there is an element of tragedy, so if you don’t like reading about death, this may not be the book for you.
He Forgot To Say Goodbye is a great book. It has flaws, but in the context of such amazing, interesting characters, they are easily overlooked.