Reading Response

What Happened to Goodbye

Sarah Dessen

  Throughout the book "What Happened to Goodbye" Mclean slowly finds out who she wants to be. All people are different. Some are kind, some are innocent, some are adventurous and some are rebellious. Mclean, however has been moving constantly for three years, and hasn't had the chance to really settle on the person she wants to be. However, Mclean starts to gain confidence as the end nears the book.

 When Mclean comes to Lakeview, she thinks that she doesn’t really fit in. However, she soon makes friends with popular kids. One day when she was eating lunch with them; Dave, Ellis, Heather and Riley, Mclean invites the outcast Deb to come sit with Mclean and the rest of them for lunch. On page 90 Mclean says, “I felt both Riley and Heather look at me, but I kept my eye on Deb, who looked so surprised --shocked, even-- that you’d have thought I’d asked her to lend me a kidney.” This is evidence of Mclean showing her brave side. She’s slowly growing her confidence, and asked Deb to join them, knowing the risk of her only friends leaving her. If she was scared inside, she didn’t show it. She was determined and felt like Deb shouldn’t be left out, because she was a good person. Mclean invited Deb right there, in front of the popular kids, and she didn’t care. She’s gaining confidence little by little.

  Mclean’s parents are divorced; her mom left for another man and Mclean stayed loyal to her father, staying with him. Mclean doesn’t like her mom for leaving her dad when he didn’t deserve it, and because of this, she avoids her calls, makes excuses for meet-ups and, overall, doesn’t want any relation with her. However, she ends up planning to go to a basketball game to meet her mom and other family. She got so scared and nervous, she asked Dave to come with her. Mclean needed someone to be there for her, not only to accompany her, but to make her happy. That’s a step forward for Mclean, because she invited Dave to the game to meet her mom, who she really doesn’t like. Mclean says, “And despite my dad’s confidence that this was a good thing, it suddenly felt like anything but. Which is why I panicked, and did the last thing I ever would have expected. “Do you want to come?” I asked Dave.” Mclean shocked herself on inviting Dave, yet it’s good for her, that she’s making friends and becoming confident.

  Mclean has started to become good friends with Riley, Ellis, Heather, Deb and Dave. They like to hang out with her, and even helped her build a model of the town for a community project. When Mclean hangs out with them, she gains more confidence because she’s honest to them, and she’ll talk to them. When Mclean, Deb and Dave were working on the model together, Riley, Ellis, and Heather came to come pick him up to go to Riley’s house for dinner, and Riley saw them there, hard at work and invited them to come. Mclean described it by saying, “Riley took one look across the model and then said, “You guys can come. I mean, if you want.” So they have accepted Mclean for who she is, and she’s happy about it. She gets invited to hang out with them and knows that they really are all friends now. 

 This shows that not all people can find their true personality, and the environment around you helps influence who you want to be seen as. As for Mclean, gaining confidence in herself was found by spending time with friends.