How to Say Goodbye in Robot

by Natalie Standiford

After moving to Baltimore and enrolling in a private school, high school senior Beatrice befriends a quiet loner with a troubled family history.

• ISBN10: 0545107091
• ISBN13: 9780545107099
• Publish Date: 1 December 2010 (first published 1 October 2009)
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Scholastic Paperbacks
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 276
• Language: English

Reviews

[Angie]

How to Say Goodbye in Robot is adorable, different, and cracked my heart. It didn't quite break it, but it would have if the ending had gone in the direction I feared it would. But it didn't, so my heart is aching, but in tact. It's all about Bea, whose family has just moved at the start of her senior year. Bea is quirky, but not exactly an outsider, so she's welcomed by the girls at her new school. However, it's Johan--nicknamed Ghost Boy--who becomes her newest and only friend. No one bothers with him, and he doesn't bother with anyone, but he and Bea bond over death and radio.

I adored Bea and her slightly morbid hobbies. She creates death fantasies to help her sleep, and occasionally stages gruesome movie scenes with her mother to photograph. Kind of weird, but I found her interests believable rather than forced in order to make her quirky and interesting. It's her preoccupation with death which gets Johan to introduce her to a late night radio show, where the callers all believe in ghosts. In fact, there's snippets of the radio calls in How to Say Goodbye in Robot and I loved that! I felt like I was listening right there with Bea and getting to know all its eccentric listeners. It was a lot of fun! The radio listeners also wound up playing as amazing supports to Bea and Jonah when things get bad.

While I absolutely loved How to Say Goodbye in Robot for focusing on a purely platonic boy-girl friendship which never turned romantic, I was a bit thrown off by how quickly it happened. Jonah at first shows no interest in making friends, despite telling Bea about the radio show. Then all of a sudden they're attached at the hip and are closer than close. I felt like I missed a pivotal moment, since Jonah went from "leave me alone" to "never leave me!" in no time. But I enjoyed their friendship so much! They are adorable! And then Jonah gets some news. Very, very shocking, life altering news and Bea is beyond supportive! This is also when my heart started crumbling, because, aahhh! Emotions!

How to Say Goodbye in Robot is primarily about Bea and Jonah, and how Bea helps Jonah with his...mission (I don't want to give it away!), but it also shows how Bea and her mom relate, and fail to relate after the move. It is Bea's mother who calls her a robot for not being emotional, while her mother is an emotional wreck. She seems very imbalanced and spends a lot of the book sick, which made my mind immediately jump to pregnancy! Then as things get worse: cancer! But it's neither of those things. It's something far more common, which I'm surprised isn't dealt with more in fiction. I'm glad it was addressed, but I was left underwhelmed by this plot thread, since Jonah's struggles are much more emotional.

In the end, I did love How to Say Goodbye in Robot. It covers one full year of Bea starting over, but keeping to who she is. How she made friends with the friendless boy and tried to help make his dreams come true. That sounds very cheesy, but it's anything but, I promise! It's sooo amazing!

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[Kelly]

http://www.divabooknerd.com/2013/09/how-to-say-goodbye-in-robot-by-natalie.html
How To Say Goodbye In Robot begun like your average teen contemporary novel, but soon turned into a quirky, and emotional read that will leave you not knowing how to feel. It wasn't the characters, or the storyline that stood out, it's how it was woven and meshed together of a tale of two teens dealing with their demons and changing each others lives.

It will rip you apart and piece you back together... And you'll love every minute of it.

[jeannamichel]

about the book: Robot girl, a code name for Beatrice moves to Baltimore and meets Ghost Boy, a code name for Jonah. They bond together by listening to the same radio show every night.
my thoughts: If you're hoping for romance, well you're just going to be disappointed, then. This was extremely weird. The beginning, at first, I was thinking that everyone must be crazy. I haven't read a book where all the charcters act as odd as they could. It was completely mind-blowing and it made me think I was the one crazy for questioning the characters' sanity.
But after reading it- I think I felt I learned something of life. The friendship with Beatrice and Jonah was so interconnected with each other that it was fantastic not to feel upset that you don't have that kind of relationship with someone.
Overall, five stars, because on an emotional stand point it deserved them.

[ibeforem]

I thought this was a touching story… a little bit coming of age, a little bit romance. Bea has moved to a new town and is starting in a new school for her senior year of high school. Fate, the alphabet, and a shared affinity for late night radio call-in shows lead her to a tentative-at-first friendship with the Ghost Boy, Jonah, who has long been the misfit of the class. Bea is a bit of a misfit herself, not really interested in the usual teenaged girl things and saddled with a couple of parents that are far to involved with their own problems to really pay much attention to her. I really liked this story, though the ending is a bit bittersweet. I did have one problem with it…. I didn’t like how casual underaged drinking was in this book. I know that it happens, a lot, but I don’t think that a book that is marketed to young adults should treat it in such a "this is normal, everyone does it!" way. And though I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Baltimore, I don’t really believe that there are business establishments in this day and age where 17 year olds can waltz in and buy alcohol on a regular basis.