What To Say Next by Julie Buxbaum

What to Say Next by Julie Buxbaum
(Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads)Also by this author: Tell Me Three Things
Published by Random House LCC US on July 11th 2017
Format: ARC

Sometimes a new perspective is all that is needed to make sense of the world.

KIT: I don’t know why I decide not to sit with Annie and Violet at lunch. It feels like no one here gets what I’m going through. How could they? I don’t even understand.

DAVID: In the 622 days I’ve attended Mapleview High, Kit Lowell is the first person to sit at my lunch table. I mean, I’ve never once sat with someone until now. “So your dad is dead,” I say to Kit, because this is a fact I’ve recently learned about her.

When an unlikely friendship is sparked between relatively popular Kit Lowell and socially isolated David Drucker, everyone is surprised, most of all Kit and David. Kit appreciates David’s blunt honesty—in fact, she finds it bizarrely refreshing. David welcomes Kit’s attention and her inquisitive nature. When she asks for his help figuring out the how and why of her dad’s tragic car accident, David is all in. But neither of them can predict what they’ll find. Can their friendship survive the truth?

Julie Buxbaum was added to my favorite authors list after reading Tell Me Three Things last year and she solidified her spot on my auto-buy list with What To Say Next.

I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that I could not put this book down. I started and completed it on a trip earlier this year simply because I was so invested in these characters and their stories! I found myself in that awkward spot where you want to hug and guide and protect a literary character and I’m not even sorry about it.

David is on the spectrum… and he has a hard time determining who means well and who doesn’t when interacting with others. His older sister watched out for him quite a bit, and helped him create his notebook of facts that he can rely on to help keep things straight, but he still finds himself in predicaments that are so frustrating to see. But he’s so incredibly smart and amazing and I just absolutely love him.

Kit has always been part of the popular crowd, but with the death of her father, she finds that no one can understand what she’s dealing with. Everyone is telling her that it’s time for her to move on but she just can’t. She can’t figure out what is supposed to be next for her.

When Kit decides to sit with David at lunch one day, everything changes. She asks for his help to figure out what really happened with the car accident her father was in, and he can’t resist the lure of the puzzle… no matter what the story might tell once he figures it all out.

I can’t even explain to you guys in words how I felt about David while reading this book. Like I mentioned above, I wanted to protect him from the inevitable bullying that occurs when you’re different… but it was wonderful to see that he had people who were there for him. His relationship with his sister Lauren, was pretty amazing.

This has some heartbreak for sure and the ending will hit you so unexpectedly, but it is such an amazingly told story filled with beautiful, complicated characters that are so raw and real.

Thank you for sharing this story and these characters Julie… I can’t wait to revisit them again soon

Thank you to the publisher for an early copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.

About Julie Buxbaum

I was born in 1977, and spent my childhood in Rockland County, New York, where there were some happy years, more awkward ones, and multiple forays into the regrettable world of perms and spray up bangs. After high school, I attended the University of Pennsylvania, where I studied Political Science, Philosophy, and Economics. To this day, I am not sure why I picked PPE, other than the fact that I have always been a sucker for a good deal, and it sounded a lot like three for the price of one. As a result, I know very little about a lot, which tends to come in handy only at cocktail parties, and even then, maybe once every two years.

During college, I worked as a technician for a sleep deprivation study, which until becoming a writer, was the best gig I ever had. Basically, I got paid to attach electrodes to people’s heads and then to keep them awake for an absurd number of hours with the well-practiced art of inane babbling. My time was well spent though: the study ultimately proved that when people don’t sleep for long periods of time they get—wait for it—very, very tired.

Directly after college, I attended Harvard Law School. After my first Boston winter, though, in a quest for warmer weather, I spent the summer interning at the US Attorney’s Office in Honolulu. There, I did research to help bust a fake I.D. ring, an assignment that let’s just say still makes me feel a little hypocritical and guilty.

After graduation, I moved to New York to work as a litigator at a large law firm, where I spent two long winters, and many, many hours working in the MetLife building. When I realized I had not seen sunlight in almost seven hundred and thirty days, I asked to be transferred to their Los Angeles office, which upon seeing my pale and desperate face, they kindly obliged. I eventually moved to a much smaller firm, but shortly thereafter realized that maybe I wasn’t cut out for the whole lawyer thing. As part of a New Year’s resolution, I quit my job, downsized my life, and went to work immediately on The Opposite of Love.

I have not looked back since. Well, except to write this bio.

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