Goodbye Stranger

LoveReading Says

September 2015 NewGen Book of the Month.

Rebecca Stead loves to set her readers puzzles: there are huge mysteries in her award-winning novels When You Reach Me and Liar and Spy and her new book, Goodbye Stranger also poses questions. Central character Bridge was very nearly killed by a car aged 8, and has never forgotten one of the nurses telling her that ‘you must have been put on this earth for a reason’ – the question what that reason might be circles in her head thereafter.

At the time of the book’s action, Bridge is 12 and starting seventh grade, year 7 as we know it, a year that marks a real transition from childhood to the beginning of adulthood. She navigates it cautiously, even reluctantly, in contrast to her long-time best friends Tab and Em who seem more than ready to become young adults.

In other plotlines, Bridge’s new friend Sherm tries to work out why his grandfather left his grandmother after fifty years of happy marriage, and – another mystery – which character, unnamed until the very end, is bunking off school in shame after betraying a friend’s trust? Full of ideas, insight and real depth, this beautifully told story examines love and friendship in all their forms, and asks us all to think about who we are.  ~ Andrea Reece

Reviewed by Andrea Reece
Andrea Reece has spent all her working life in children’s books.
More reviews by Andrea Reece

About Goodbye Stranger

Bridge has always been a bit of an oddball, but since she recovered from a serious accident, she's found fitting in with her friends increasingly hard. Tab and Em are getting cooler and better and they don't get why she insists on wearing novelty cat ears every day. Bridge just thinks they look good.

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