He Forgot to Say Goodbye

By Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Book Overview

"I mean, it's not as if I want a father. I have a father. It's just that I don't know who he is or where he is. But I have one."

Ramiro Lopez and Jake Upthegrove don't appear to have much in common. Ram lives in the Mexican-American working-class barrio of El Paso called "Dizzy Land." His brother is sinking into a world of drugs, wreaking havoc in their household. Jake is a rich West Side white boy who has developed a problem managing his anger. An only child, he is a misfit in his mother's shallow and materialistic world. But Ram and Jake do have one thing in common: They are lost boys who have never met their fathers. This sad fact has left both of them undeniably scarred and obsessed with the men who abandoned them. As Jake and Ram overcome their suspicions of each other, they begin to move away from their loner existences and realize that they are capable of reaching out beyond their wounds and the neighborhoods that they grew up in. Their friendship becomes a healing in a world of hurt.

San Antonio Express-News wrote, "Benjamin Alire S enz exquisitely captures the mood and voice of a community, a culture, and a generation"; that is proven again in this beautifully crafted novel.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416949631
• ISBN13: 9781416949633
• Release Date: June 2008
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.02 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.9" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 13 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 8 to 12

Customer Reviews

It's painfully true and entertaining.

My sister actually told me to read this book because we were going to meet Mr. Seanz. I actually thought that it was going to be a waste of time but it wasn't. it's beautifully written and it's very accurate. I say this because i attend the high school jake goes to. it's true, the two schools are separated like that. most silva kids hate going to jeff for classes and being refer to as "jeffies". The stereotypes the book mention really do exist... "oh he's a silva kid, he's rich", "eww you have a jeff class?!". However, the book also showed me that there is hope. This book is one of my new favorites now. i've recommended it to a lot of my friends now. they all want to read about their school... figures. i just hope they learn something.

Courtesy of Teens Read Too

This a novel about two young men. They seem to be opposites in many ways, yet they have in common the fact that they have never known their fathers. Jake has had a very privileged upbringing. He really couldn't ask for more. Well, except for a father. His mom is remarried and her job is to make sure that she knows everything that's going on with Jake. It's to the point where it drives him crazy and they are constantly battling each other. Ramiro has been poor all of his life. His mom has had to work hard as a single mother. He works, too, to help support their family. His little brother, Tito, is falling into a dangerous lifestyle. It's up to Ramiro to save him. Though the boys have completely different lives, their paths do cross. Can they get past their differences to find a common ground so they can help each other? This novel revolves around the impact that an absent father can have on the life of a teenage boy. Reviewed by: hoopsielv

Richie's Picks: HE FORGOT TO SAY GOODBYE

Notes from my reading, Day One: "I didn't stop there. Of course I didn't. I just felt I had to add that I probably had a better idea of the serious philosophy of anarchy than a man like him whose addiction to order seriously undermined his feeble attempts at engaging his imagination. "He returned my remark by reminding me that he remained unimpressed with my shallow intellectual demeanor and that nothing could disguise my obstinate, disrespectful, and undisciplined attitude. He said being a smart aleck didn't actually make me smart. And then he said it again: 'Despite your extensive, if aggressive vocabulary, you're nothing but an angry, disrespectful young man who needs a little discipline.' You see, the thing with adults is that respect is just a word they use to guilt us nonadults into doing what they want us to do. But did Mr. Alexis leave it at that? Of course not. He reminded me and Tom and John that it was a privilege to attend a pre-med magnet school and if we weren't very careful, well, we just might be sent back to a normal school. That's how he put it. A normal school. That guy, he destroys me. Where in the hell was he going to find a normal school? How can schools be normal when they're run by adults like him." To tell you the truth, reading HE FORGOT TO SAY GOODBYE has so far been really slow going for me. But that is only because Ben Saenz is a poet, and while there is theoretically not a line of verse in the whole book, reading it is sure causing me to treat it as if it were an exceptional volume of YA poetry. This is one of those books that I need to read aloud and then read aloud again so that I can savor the words and expressions -- English and Spanish -- of entire amazing passages. Notes from my reading, Day Two: I would really prefer to have an audience so that I could actually be sharing these words and expressions and entire amazing passages but, instead, I have been sitting up in my room alone, reading aloud and loudly to myself, and totally cracking up every couple of pages, particularly with the Jake monologues. Yes, there are a whole slew of passages here which are so hysterical that I am repeatedly delaying any forward motion by re-reading and re-re-reading two- and three-page passages aloud in order to cause myself to laugh all over again. (By now the family dog must think I'm in serious need of a mental health professional.) In fact, I was inspired to write the Day One notes yesterday upon reaching page 39; now -- hours of reading later -- I've just finished re-reading page 52. And I'm still sitting here cracking up. Notes from my reading, Day Three: HE FORGOT TO SAY GOODBYE is a story about what it is to become a man. It is the tale of two teenage guys in El Paso, Texas who know each other on a very casual basis. What they don't yet know they have in common is that neither really knows more about his own respective father than what he has gotten from his mom and -- in Ramiro's case -- his mom's sister.