marin reads

quote

“I never told anyone about this nightly habit. I was sure my parents would send me to a shrink if they knew, and the shrink would institutionalize me or drug me or give me shock therapy or at least make me visit him five days a week. They wouldn’t understand. I didn’t want to die. I just found death soothing to think about.”
– How To Say Goodbye in Robot, Natalie Standiford

how to say goodbye in robot

This book turned out to be one of the most important reads I've had in a long time. I'm not saying it'll be the same for everyone, because it's one of those books that touched me very personally, like Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, John Green's Looking for Alaska, Daniel Clowe's Ghost World and Rachel Cohn & David Levithan's Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. Because of how much this book affected me, though, I'm not sure if I can be coherent enough to even write about it. But I have to try.

The story is about Beatrice ('Robot Girl' on her favourite radio talk show), whose family moved a lot because of her dad's job, and the strange friendship she had struck with Jonah ('Ghost Boy'), a boy in her new school. They were definitely more than friends, but the relationship wasn't a romantic one. I really don't want to write more of the story than this, because I think this is one of those books that is best to read without knowing too much about it. (Well, that's how I prefer most of my non-fantasy YA, anyway.)

Having described myself as a 'Ghost Girl'** for the longest time, having experienced a similar friendship (that even ended up in almost the same way as Bea & Jonas's did), and having been to six schools in twelve years, I related to both Beatrice and Jonah. But I won' get into that in this post; instead, I'll write about other things I like about this book. I liked the radio show that Bea & Jonas listen to at night - the idea that a group of people could communicate and relate to each other, and become sort of like a family, over the radio, really appealed to me. I liked that the other kids at Bea & Jonah's school weren't portrayed as bad, exactly. They just didn't see things the same way Bea & Jonah did. I liked that i's about a platonic relationship, and how that could be just as complicated and intense (maybe even more complicated and intense) as a romantic one. I like Bea's mother. I like the slow way the characters change throughout the novel - both Bea and her mother end up as completely different people from who they were at the beginning of the book. I like the quirkiness of this novel - the idea that there are people from the future living in our time thread, the idea of people who are from different backgrounds connecting through a radio show, the idea of dressing up in costumes and taking photographs of yourselves. And the whole thing about disappearing, becoming a ghost person, that really got to me too, because it was something that I've carried with me all through high school and college. It's one of the most endearing and heart-breaking books I've read in a long time. I don't think that everyone will feel the same way about it (after all, my reaction to it is mostly personal) but it won't stop me from recommending it!

* Originally posted in LiveJournal, in May 2010
**this was before I figured out I was enby. Incidentally, when I wrote this I also haven't figured out I was aroace.

book details

Scholastic Press, October 1st 2009, 9780545107082

young adult