User:Eskline188/sandbox

Plot
After living in Lakeview for a few months, Mclean finds out that her dad got another job offer in Hawaii. While she is trying to cope with the ideas of moving for a fifth time, her friends find out about all the different personas she has taken on by discovering that she has three different Ume pages, each with a different girl that they don’t recognize. A Ume page is similar to a facebook page. Mclean for once is grateful to go to the small beach town of Colby with her mom, which her mom had insisted on doing during Mclean’s spring break. She is relieved to get away from all the overwhelming events that has happened back in Lakeview. While she is in Colby, Mclean overhears her mom telling a friend that she thinks that it was mistake inviting Mclean to come to the beach. Since Mclean feels out of place, she decides to leave her mom’s house to go to the Poseidon, an old, worn out motel that smells like mildew. Mclean and her mom use to spend many nights in the Poseidon, when they took one of their spontaneous beach trips. Confused and in need of a companion, Mclean calls her “two a.m.,”, the person she knows she can always rely on no matter what, Dave. In the meantime her parents are worried about her. Mclean’s mom frantically calls her dad. While Mclean’s dad is leaving the house to drive up to Colby to look for Mclean, he sees Dave who tells him where Mclean is. Mclean’s parents both go to the Poseidon. There, Mclean tells them about the different personas she has taken on and, for the first time, they realize how hard the divorce is for her. Mclean’s parents apologize. Mclean also finds out that she misheard her mom when she was talking to her friend. Her mom was talking about not wanting to host a party at her house this year, like she has done in the past.

Characters
Dave Wade is Mclean’s intelligent neighbor. He is a “boy genius who skipped, like, all of junior high and was taking college courses”. To his parents dismay he decided to transfer from an elite private school to a public school because he wanted to have a normal high school experience. Dave owes community service because he was caught underage drinking, so he spends a lot of time working on the model of the town to fill his requirements. Mclean and Dave fall in love.

Gus Sweet is Mclean’s father. He is an attractive man with blue eyes and longish hair, which women are drawn too. He has been divorced for two years. He was a huge fan of Defriese University basketball team, which is an understatement because “he lived and breathed DB”, until his ex-wife fell in love with the coach. Gus use to own a restaurant in Tyler with his ex-wife, Kathryn Hamilton, called Mariposa Grill. He decided to sell it and take a consulting job with EAT INC. His new job takes him all over the country.

Riley is Dave’s childhood best friend. She and Dave have matching tattoos on their wrists. Riley and Mclean become friends.

Maddie and Connor Hamilton are Mclean’s half siblings. Maddie and Connor are twins. Their father is Peter Hamilton and their mother is Mclean’s mother, Kathryn Hamilton.

Reception
What Happened to Goodbye has mostly received positive reviews. Critics have praised Dessen’s way of making her characters realistic, so readers can connect to them. Each character really “resonates with the reader” ." . Portrait Reviews described Mclean as “one of the easiest characters to identify with” . Dessen’s books are aimed toward teens because she focuses on the “exploration of a teen’s life” . Dessen “creates a comfortable space for young adults struggling with identity, relationships, and all that messy family stuff” .  Readers can relate to the characters because they are “realistically flawed” and Dessen “ remain[s] true to modern adolescence” Dessen “avoid[s] the usual cliches for such characters” (Los Angeles Times), which makes them come to life. Not only can readers relate to the characters, but they can also relate to the situations they are faced with. Seventeen Magazine notes that Dessens “ability to write about serious issues in an upbeat manner allows teen to relate to situations they face” . Critics praise Dessen’s ability to create well-developed characters. Publisher Weekly commented that “the depth of her well-developed characters grabs readers’ attention and leaves them anxious for each new release”. The supporting characters are as well developed as the main characters. Common Sense commends Dessen for having a “strong supporting cast”. All of the characters have very “distinct personalities”. Critics note that Dessen writes in a simple format, but still adds depth and complexity to her novels. Galley Smith commented that “What Happened to Goodbye has some simple plot elements yet still manages to be surprisingly complex”. Publishers Weekly also points out that Dessen does not use “complicated dialect”, which can distract the reader from the main plot. Even though some critics felt like the characters were well-developed with definitive and unique personalities, others felt like they didn’t get a “strong sense of personality”, which made them feel like they didn’t  get to know the characters. Critics also criticized the “slight lack of tension... which keeps it from being truly compelling”. Publisher Weekly commented that it has an “emotional punch to a long narrative that doesn’t otherwise have much of an arc”. Critics said that the weak conflict causes the story to ramble. Critics point out that it is very repetitive because Dessen “[draws] unnecessary circles”. They also note that “Dessen often skips backward and forward in the narrative”, which can be confusing for the reader.