Goodbye for Now

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Average customer rating 5 (3 comments)

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Here is a book that should appeal to technology nerds as well as anyone in mourning who has ever longed for an opportunity to talk once again with their loved one. Some people would say it can be done.

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I desperately want to figure out where I got the recommendation for this book so I can thank the person or institution that randomly put it on my 'to read' list. I rarely rate books 5 out of 5 stars but I sat down in an afternoon to start reading this book and I barely moved from the same spot well into the night until I finished it and started evangelizing about how "it is SO good!" the premise sounds weird but really isn't: a computer genius Sam, tries to do whatever he can to help his girlfriend Meredith through the grieving process after her beloved grandmother dies. But really that's not what it's about. It's about what loving relationships look like (in all their unique forms) and how everyone deals differently with the loss of that relationship and no one is prepared to do so, nor are their friends and family prepared to help them through their own process. It's about how love exists past the lives of the people doing the loving and how beautiful and hopeful and semi-tragic that may feel. For a book about a solution to the grieving process, it was so full of love and life and funny moments as to leave the reader intrigued but unburdened at the end - but expect the hardiest of souls to be at least a little teary-eyed. And for the geeks out there, it's a little "Ghost in the Machine" for you as well.

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I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one. I think there is a high chance that this story could have come off as being creepy ��" but luckily it wasn’t creepy at all. At least to me. I think it was a little freaky, being able to “talk” to dead loved ones is a bit weird. But the more I read the story the more I understood what these people were doing and it became a little less weird. I do think that if we ever see this kind of technology it will create a lot of controversy though. And the book does go into a bit of that controversy and touches on both sides of it. So it was very well-rounded. I loved the characters ��" real and otherwise. Sam was a likable guy ��" like many “nerds” he was often overlooked as boyfriend material. Then he found Meredith. Because they were matched on how well their personalities would mesh rather than how they looked their romance was true. Meredith loved Sam for who he was, not how he looked. And it made for a great romance. Their relationship is the kind that everyone dreams of having. They were truly the perfect fit for each other. They complimented each other so nicely. Where Sam was an introvert Meredith was an extrovert and helped open Sam up. Where Meredith was emotional Sam helped her talk through things and look at the whole picture. If the story had just been about their love it would have been a great story. But there was so much more to this than just being a love story. The book deals with a controversial issue, and regardless of which side you agree with I think it’s a book worth reading. It really does deal with both sides of the issue ��" those that don’t think it’s right, and those that do. The premise of the story is that you can talk to your loved ones after they’ve passed if they have a decent amount of online activity to build on. For people who are grieving being able to talk to that loved one just one more time can be the closure they need to move on with their lives. And yet there are those people who keep the lines of communication going for quite a while. Those people who come in looking for communication with their loved ones really become an integral part of the story. They’re sharing something so intimate with each other, and they really do become their own little family. As much as I liked the love story between Sam and Meredith seeing the changing dynamics between the people there to speak with their loved ones was a great addition to the story. I’ve been seeing that the movie rights for this one have already been picked up. I think that’s awesome. It was a great book and I think it will make an amazing movie. It was wonderfully written, and as long as the screen play doesn’t take too many liberties with the story it will be a great movie.