Review: How To Say Goodbye in Robot

This is possibly my favorite title of any book of all time. It's a little misleading, although less so than the pink cover. But the pink cover led to some design quirks inside the book that I loved (DESIGN SPOLER ALERT: There are some pink pages.) To be fair, I love any book that is a little quirky, uneven pages, brown font, blue font, etc.

Anyway, the title is sort of misleading. It makes perfect sense, and it is a perfect title for the book. However, if a reader were to be expecting, say, robots, they'd be a little disappointed. Instead, this is a beautiful, restrained (a word key to its success) story of a friendship.

Beatrice bounces from town to town; her father is always looking for better or different jobs as a professor. She doesn't really know how to relate to other kids her age. She also has trouble processing how she is "supposed" to feel in certain situations. For instance, in the beginning a hamster she hasn't owned for very long dies. She isn't particularly attached to the hamster, so she isn't really sad. This leads her mother to call her a robot. And that disconnect with her emotions and other people plays throughout the story. It's a story of identity. On the other side of the story is Jonah, who after his mother and twin brother died in a car wreck officially checked out from a social life. He's earned himself the nickname Ghost Boy. And so it goes. Two outsiders who bond over a quirky radio program and quickly begin spending most of their time together.
This book is nice. It's main pro, it isn't a romance. These two share deep feelings for each other, possibly love, but no more than friends, very good friends. There is a great line where Beatrice is trying to describe their relationship and she says, "He's just my Jonah." Their friendship isn't easy either. Most of the characters are well-drawn, especially Bea and Jonah. They are complicated, so it should make sense that their friendship is complex and even frustrating. And it leads to an emotionally devastating ending, phrased well in the language of a robot and a ghost. I nearly cried.
It is flawed, however. Standiford takes some bizarre, unbelievable twists through this book. The focus should be the friendship, but at times it veers into a totally strange mystery (without saying too much: someone who was thought to be dead, may not be. And there may or may not be a cover-up.) It's a curveball, and one I wasn't really willing to follow, but Standiford makes it work. Sort of. It is still bananas and I still have a problem with that plot thread, but her best quality, restraint, saves her. She keeps it tasteful, and does keep the friendship as the focus. Still, their friendship would have been more believable if she hadn't steered off the road for a bit.