A review by dreamyari
If We Say Goodbye by Jasmine Little

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

 i really enjoyed the cute moments with our protag and her love interest but unfortunately the majority of the second third of this book really set it back for me. 

for some reason this is riddled with typos which were continuously breaking my immersion. 

the pacing feels way off, our main character spends a good chunk of the book misunderstanding/refusing to understand a situation with her friend, only for this to do a total 180 in the span of two sentences. flawed characters are so important to me but in this instance it almost felt wasteful as i approached the final parts of the books. the time spent reading was enough to turn the dynamics around, but the writing’s focus wasn’t there, therefore the shifts felt out of place and jarring. 

i appreciate any story that touches on grief, because it always feels like a vulnerability from the author and it can be done in so many different ways because everybody’s experience is so unique. sadly i struggled with not getting angry with becca throughout her grief journey, and i know a lot of that was intentional, but i think i found it to be the case when the intent was to make the reader feel sympathy or empathy, too. 

could i write a better book? no. absolutely not. this isn’t a bad book by any means but i really think some further editing would work wonders for it, even if it’s just to reduce the double take moments the reader has from running into a misused or misspelled word.