Seventeen-year-old Tess Fowler has just dropped out of high school. She can barely function after learning of Jonah’s death. Jonah, the boy she’d traded banter with over texts and heartfelt e-mails.

Jonah, the first boy she'd told she loved and the first boy to say it back.

Jonah, the boy whose suicide she never saw coming.

Tess continues to write to Jonah, as a way of processing her grief and confusion. But for now she finds solace in perhaps the unlikeliest of ways: by helping her father with his new alternative funeral business, where his biggest client is . . . a prized racehorse?

As Tess’s involvement in her father’s business grows, both find comfort in the clients they serve and in each other. But love, loss, and life are so much more complicated than Tess ever thought. Especially after she receives a message that turns her life upside down.

Beyond the Pages

So, for my post for this blog tour I am doing a Beyond the Pages kind of post. In Things I’m Seeing Without You, the main character Tess deals with the loss of her boyfriend, Jonah, to suicide. I decided to do a Beyond the Pages because I relate to Tess. Tess never saw the suicide coming. And a lot of people can say, how can you not? Well the thing is, people are really good at hiding depression. I know because when I was 18 I lost my father to suicide and I NEVER saw it coming. I didn’t know he was depressed. My entire family didn’t know he was depressed. Tess decides to continue writing to Jonah even though he’s gone. And I would say that a lot of people who lose a loved one to suicide do the same thing in one way or another. I had a voicemail saved in my inbox that I continued to listen to over and over again and if I didn’t have a different phone, I’d still have it. I also looked at all of my dad’s emails constantly and I’d write back but never hit send. For about 5 years every single story that I started to write dealt with a girl who lost her father. It was the way I grieved. And even though it has been 9 years, it still feels like it was yesterday.

I’m really intrigued to get to this book on my list. I’ve been in a huge book slump for the past year. I mean I’ve only read like 19 or 20 books ALL year and that is just not me. I was hoping to get to 100 this year. I’m hoping to knock out a bunch of books in the next couple months.

About the Author

Peter Bognanni is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His debut novel, The House of Tomorrow, won the LA Times award for first fiction and the ALA Alex Award and has been adapted into a feature film.  He teaches creative writing at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Enter for a chance to be one (1) of three (3) winners to receive a hardcover copy of Things I’m Seeing Without You by Peter Bognanni. (ARV: $17.99 each).

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Enter between 12:00 AM Eastern Time on September 25, 2017 and 12:00 AM on October 16, 2017. Open to residents of the fifty United States and the District of Columbia who are 13 and older. Winners will be selected at random on or about October 18, 2017. Odds of winning depend on number of eligible entries received. Void where prohibited or restricted by law.

Tour Schedule

Let’s talk about it!