Reviewer: Tracy
Goodbye to You by A.J. Matthews
Series: The Kellys of Key West #1

Publication Date: April 2nd 2015
Genres: New Adult
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Series Rating:

A Radical Decision
My darling girls: I can’t believe our time is coming to an end. We’ve been together for such a short time, but wow, fun times. You’ve caused me grief as well, but mostly it’s been an unbelievable ride. Especially our time in Key West. But the potential harm you could cause makes this radical step necessary. So I say: “Goodbye to you, boobs.”

A preventative double mastectomy is taking you away soon, and I’d had no doubt this was the right thing to do until I met him. His name is Shay Kelly. He likes me, but you? He can’t keep his hands off of you.

An Unexpected Love
It was a summer fling. Or was supposed to be, but as ass-kicking fate would have it, he’s going to med school at my college. I ran into him at the hospital, and agreed to one date, which turned into so much more.

Shay is perfect. Gorgeous, smart, and ambitious. He doesn't know you’ll be leaving soon. The one thing he despises is being lied to, the way people lied to him for years about a family tragedy. Now I’m lying by colossal omission. So I need to figure out a way to tell Shay about the surgery...and find the strength to watch him walk away. I’ll miss him, and I’ll miss you, too. But I must say goodbye. Adiós. Au revoir. Ta-ta forever, ta-tas.

The joke isn't so funny now that I have even more to lose.

Tracy’s review of Goodbye to You (The Kellys of Key West #1) by A.J. Matthews

Thea is in Key West with her best friends to have a fun time and, hopefully for Thea, one last fling before she has a preventative double mastectomy. She sees, then meets, Shay in his uncle’s pub and the two hit it off immediately. They end up spending the rest of her vacation together which unfortunately was only about 4 days. During that time, however, they became closer and pretty much feel for each other. Reality has a way of rearing its ugly head and soon Thea is back to her real life and Shay off to medical school

Thea never expected to see Shay again so when she does she’s not sure how to react. Yes, she fell for him in Key West but she’s pretty sure once her boobs are gone Shay will be gone also. She’s not willing to take the risk of getting involved with Shay just so she can be left heartbroken.

Goodbye to You was an interesting look at a young woman getting ready to make a major life decision. She’s positive that the surgery is the right thing to do as both her mother and sister had gotten it. She hadn’t, but she had been genetically tested and tested positive for the brca1 mutation. That meant her chances of contracting breast cancer were incredibly high. I had to admire her decision to have the surgery. I understood her concerns about her future with children and love and even possible ovarian cancer. As much as I admired her, however, her roller coaster way of treating Shay drove me a bit batty. She was all over him then would have second thoughts about him in her life and then she’d try to make him hate her so that he’d leave. Luckily Shay was smart and caught on to what she was doing. He was persistent and didn’t let her go.

Shay had his own set of issues. He had depression and autism in his family and he had his concerns about having children as well. He knew that it wasn’t going to happen any time soon but it certainly crossed his mind. He was such a rock for Thea and I was happy to see that she had found herself such a strong man, which is what she needed.

I found issues with her friends as well. Their trip to Key West was supposed to be for Thea but all her friends did was party and hang out at the pool while she wanted to sightsee, etc. It was just very selfish of them to be so unenthusiastic about doing what Thea wanted to do when they were there for her in the first place. I didn’t care for that at all.

Overall it was a sweet story but even with everything going on I didn’t find it too intense. The romance happened quickly but it didn’t seem to matter as there were so many other major issues being dealt with.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

This title is available from Colbert Creative, LLC. You can buy it here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.