Reads and Thoughts

Reasons why you should read this book:

1. The deep story was well mixed with a good humor and a breathe of fresh air kind of love.
2. The checklist in every chapter is seriously hilarious at the same time helpful.
3. The story would evoke unwanted at the same time wanted feelings within you.
4. Howie is such a cutie.
5. The story was really good.

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I started reading this book with the thing in mind that it is all about sadness, darkness and depression but no its not just about those three adjective because they story was also well blended with the elements of humor and a breathe of fresh air kind of romance.

Deaths are inevitable and messy and confusing all at the same time. Having someone so close to you be gone would not be that easy, in fact that’s when things started to get much more complicated because secrets will unveil by their own and no one for sure is going to stop it. Death also carries a whole gang of friends with him namely shame, resentment, blame, depression, grief and the best mate of all guilt.

Guilt is the best mate of Death. When one dies guilt would surely take over the people they left behind. Guilt that maybe they have said or done something that pushes the death one to end up being dead or simply a guilt that they could and should have done something to prevent it about it and the latter is what hunted Carmela since her sister Francesca died.

Wish I Could Have Said Goodbye offers us the story of Carmela who suffers a great grief over the death of her sister. The whole aura of the story was pretty gloomy for me which really suits its premise. Carmela tries to deal with the death of her sister the best as she could but sometimes loneliness and grief and guilt just simply eats her up. But as much as I feel sorry for Carmela I honestly didn’t connect to her that much but I really wanted to. She always seemed to be the troubled girl type but I didn’t get to see a glimpse of her during the time when her sister was still alive. The story only takes me to her present life - the life without her sister but I think it would be much better if I also get to read the part of her life when her sister was still with her becasue let's face it the whole story was about her sister and I really do want see more on how close they both were. I want to see the Carmela before things starts to fall apart because with that I think I could really connect with her.

Carmela's parents are one of those that I literally want to bang up against the wall and just wake the hell up of their minds. I understand a side of them that wants to take care of Carmela and the fact that they don’t want her to end like her sister by being strict to her was still considered understandable but that’s where I draw the line. They’re trying to cope up their own grief and sorrow by trying to manipulate the remaining daughter that they have. Good points for looking after Carmela was taken but it seems that they forgot the she doesn’t need anything at the moment especially the overbearing strictness from them because what she need at moments like this are shoulders to cry on, to share thoughts and talk about stuffs and make her feel loved.

Howie was the sunshine for me on the story. He's cute as a pebble! (I get that somewhere. lol) He's the 'what-you-see-is-what-you-get' type of guy plus he's sweet, attentive, overly understanding plus he's a figure skater!!

Drug addiction/over dosage is the main lesson or moral of the story and it’s really not an easy matter and nowadays a lot of people especially teenagers are indulging to such stuff. The story sites to us the consequences that could and would happen if things got out of hand.

Wish I could Have Said Goodbye is well created story about death, loss, grief and falling apart but still finding away to catch the pieces that have fallen keeping in mind that somewhere along the way of catching that it will never be too late; we just have to keep moving forward and forward and maybe at the end of the line there are brighter things in store - more than what we could’ve had before picking up those pieces.

*Advanced copy kindly provided for review*
*Blog Tour deets posted at Reads and Thoughts.