Goodbye Days

Carver Briggs may or may not have killed his three best friends.  

After his poorly timed text message leads to a car crash that kills Mars, Blake, and Eli, Carver is forced to reconcile his guilt and grief while also working his way through his final year of high school. His feelings are worsened when the father of Mars, the text recipient and driver during the accident, opens an investigation into Carver’s “negligent homicide.” As Carver mourns his friends, he also struggles to convince the court – and himself – that his reckless texting was not a form of murder.  

Desperate for a way to cope with his loss, Carver begins a series of “goodbye days:” days spent with each of his friends’ families as a way to remember them and say goodbye. In each of these episodic segments, the reader travels with Carver into the memories of his three late friends. Carver’s own reflections and imagined conversations also enrich the story. Complicated by his upcoming graduation, potential criminal charges, and growing feelings for Eli’s girlfriend, Carver must navigate situations he never thought he’d encounter.  

Carver’s deep internal struggle makes for an engaging, if heart-wrenching, story about grappling with difficult emotions and living life to the fullest. His status as a high school student makes the day-to-day of his life grounding and relatable, while the emotional turmoil that fills him for most of the novel adds complexity to his character. As a writer, Carver yearns for a way to retell the story of his friends’ deaths, struggling to accept his own powerlessness. This makes for a thought-provoking and poignant story that is sure to evoke emotional responses from the reader. While it seems unlikely that a real-life teenager would be charged with murder due to a text message, Zentner crafts a believable tale full of characters with a wide variety of opinions on the controversial issue.  

Aside from his personal grief and guilt, Carver spends a great deal of time with his friends’ families discussing deeper matters of being alive. As he ponders what he and his friends would be doing if they were alive, he seeks a way to move forward that both honors them and gives his own life meaning. Although the novel is certainly a tearjerker, it also has moments of joy and laughter that balance out the darker themes. The story leaves the reader with plenty to think about, from the dangers of texting while driving to living life with no regrets. Readers who want to see how other characters face difficult circumstances may want to read Tears of a Tiger by Sharon M. Draper and Bruiser by Neal Shusterman. 

Sexual Content  

• Carver dusts the dirt off of Jesmyn, his late friend Eli’s girlfriend, after she lies on the floor. Carver becomes aroused while touching her legs. 

• Carver reflects on Blake coming out as gay. Carver says he has “never been into girls. . . that way. Ever.”  

• Carver has a conversation about Blake’s sexuality with Nana Betsy that goes on for a few pages. “Blake…never found the right girl because he…didn’t want to.” 

• There are rumors that Carver and Jesmyn were seeing each other before Eli died. Jesmyn asks Carver, “Have you been telling people we’re hooking up?” She says that at her old school there were rumors about “what a slut” she was.  

• Carver tells his therapist that he and Jesmyn are just friends, “boners notwithstanding (let’s be honest: a Kmart lingerie ad can get things moving under the right circumstances).”  

Violence  

• There are frequent but non-graphic references and flashbacks to the car crash that killed Carver’s three friends. During the accident, “[Mars] slammed into the rear of a stopped semi on the highway at almost seventy miles per hour. The car went under the trailer, shearing off the top.” 

• Nana Betsy recalls when she took Blake from his abusive mother when he was eight. Fearing for his safety, she entered the house with a shotgun. It is not fired. 

• Nana Betsy rescues eight-year-old Blake after finding “a hand-shaped bruise on his back and another that looks to be a shoe print.” It is heavily implied that his mother inflicted these injuries.  

Drugs and Alcohol  

• Nana Betsy briefly references the scent of cigarette smoke.  

• Eli’s parents have a wine rack. 

• When recalling her first kiss with Eli, Jesmyn says, “My parents probably thought I was high.” 

• Eli’s mom says, “We thought some of the kids had smoked up after the show.” 

Language    

• Shit and ass are used frequently. For example, Carver says that Adair, Eli’s sister, “hates the shit out of” him and Jesmyn.  

• Stronger profanity is used a few times. Profanity includes fuck and bitch.  

Supernatural  

• None 

Spiritual Content  

• Carver has a conversation with Blake’s grandmother, Nana Betsy, about whether God will let Carver into heaven after his role in his friends’ deaths. “What do you think it takes to keep you out of heaven?” 

• Carver and Nana Betsy briefly discuss how she reconciles Blake being gay with her religion. “Our religion definitely doesn’t approve of that lifestyle, but I never did believe that people choose to be that way.” There are frequent references to Nana Betsy’s Christian beliefs.  

• Carver tells Eli’s atheist parents that he “believed in God.” Eli’s dad “derided religious people as idiots.” The three of them, along with Jesmyn, discuss this topic for two pages.