Don’t let the bright pink cover and the telephone fool you, How To Say Goodbye In Robot by Natalie Standiford is not the type of YA romance novel you might expect. In fact there were times where I snottily thought “Oh, I know where this is going.” But, I was wrong. I worried for nothing, because Standiford totally pulls it out at the end.

The book follows Beatrice Szabo through her senior year at an exclusive prep school in Baltimore, Maryland. Bea doesn’t have a lot of friends, because she’s never stayed at a school for more than a year. Instead, she and her mom are dragged around the country by her dad who is a hot-shot professor.

When the family arrives in Baltimore, Bea’s mom starts to fall apart. Mom gets hyperemotional, and dresses strangely. Mom calls Bea a robot for not falling to the ground and rending her garments over the death of a neighbor’s hamster. Some of the scenes between Mom and Bea are tough, and I often wanted to hug Bea and tell her being a Robot Girl was just fine.

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