From the Publisher
There's something in the way Jonny Sun tells stories that makes you feel like he can see right through you. No matter the medium, he speaks directly to readers, inviting us to intimate conversations on loneliness, belonging and burnout. Honest and opinionated, Sun feels like your friend…every essay in Goodbye, Again is peppered with nuances informed by his constant moves, self-imposed expectations and bittersweet goodbyes, recognizable at first sight to another third culture kid in America. Take my word for it — let Jonny Sun into your life.” — NPR
“Sun’s collection is an almost too-perfect companion to the present anxiety, exhaustion and loneliness wrought by the pandemic. . . .Through essays and minimalist drawings that resemble wood cutouts, Sun begins to re-evaluate his relationship to the world, and “this constant voice in my head telling me that my own rest and recovery and catharsis were not valuable to anybody,” including himself. Amid our fast-paced and distracted culture, it is oddly calming to read these obsessive, but also quiet and tender, dispatches from a mind overwhelmed by guilt and worry: over how often to water plants or call friends, how to properly scramble eggs or talk at parties, how not to be so alone.” — New York Times Book Review
“Offers insight into the workings of an exceptionally busy, productive mind as well as the price of living in a hypercompetitive society . . . A quietly provocative collection.” — Kirkus Reviews
“This poetic, humorous, and heartfelt collection will have readers nodding along, laughing, and maybe even crying, but more than anything they will be engrossed and craving more. Similar to Sun’s previous work, this is another standout.” — Library Journal (starred review)
“Captivating and immersive . . .To spend time with this book is to spend time in the private world of a creative, sensitive person who finds life inviting, beautiful and rich, but also overwhelming, scary and exhausting." — BookPage, Starred Review
"Goodbye, Again is the very best book of Sun’s early career. Consisting of mostly short bursts of inspiration, introspection, and hopeful observations, the book is exactly what we all need right now. Easy to pick up, flip through, and almost always find the very words you need to hear in that very moment, while also being meaty enough to sit with and read in longer bursts, Goodbye, Again is a joyful look at everyday life from one of literature’s most compassionate and well-rounded minds. It is, in a word, fantastic." — Shondaland
NPR
There's something in the way Jonny Sun tells stories that makes you feel like he can see right through you. No matter the medium, he speaks directly to readers, inviting us to intimate conversations on loneliness, belonging and burnout. Honest and opinionated, Sun feels like your friend…every essay in Goodbye, Again is peppered with nuances informed by his constant moves, self-imposed expectations and bittersweet goodbyes, recognizable at first sight to another third culture kid in America. Take my word for it — let Jonny Sun into your life.
Starred Review BookPage
Captivating and immersive . . .To spend time with this book is to spend time in the private world of a creative, sensitive person who finds life inviting, beautiful and rich, but also overwhelming, scary and exhausting."
New York Times Book Review
Sun’s collection is an almost too-perfect companion to the present anxiety, exhaustion and loneliness wrought by the pandemic. . . .Through essays and minimalist drawings that resemble wood cutouts, Sun begins to re-evaluate his relationship to the world, and “this constant voice in my head telling me that my own rest and recovery and catharsis were not valuable to anybody,” including himself. Amid our fast-paced and distracted culture, it is oddly calming to read these obsessive, but also quiet and tender, dispatches from a mind overwhelmed by guilt and worry: over how often to water plants or call friends, how to properly scramble eggs or talk at parties, how not to be so alone.
Shondaland
"Goodbye, Again is the very best book of Sun’s early career. Consisting of mostly short bursts of inspiration, introspection, and hopeful observations, the book is exactly what we all need right now. Easy to pick up, flip through, and almost always find the very words you need to hear in that very moment, while also being meaty enough to sit with and read in longer bursts, Goodbye, Again is a joyful look at everyday life from one of literature’s most compassionate and well-rounded minds. It is, in a word, fantastic."
BookPage
Captivating and immersive . . .To spend time with this book is to spend time in the private world of a creative, sensitive person who finds life inviting, beautiful and rich, but also overwhelming, scary and exhausting."
Library Journal
★ 02/01/2021
In this collection of personal essays, best-selling author Sun (Everyone's a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too) invites readers into the many metaphors of taking care of plants, the anxiety-ridden need to be productive, and the power of relationships. Sun relays many relatable anecdotes from being recognized by wait staff at a favorite restaurant to feeling more confident in writing and texting than in conversation. Readers familiar with Sun will appreciate his relatable voice as he details what it is to live with anxiety and depression but to still feel happy sometimes as well as to grow up and change while feeling nostalgic for the past. The collection is broken up into sections including 10 to 20 stories each, and stories range from one paragraph to several pages but each has significant meaning. Readers of David Sedaris will devour this collection; the stories are short but packed with eloquent detail that will lead readers to reminisce on their own lives. VERDICT This poetic, humorous, and heartfelt collection will have readers nodding along, laughing, and maybe even crying, but more than anything they will be engrossed and craving more. Similar to Sun's previous work, this is another standout.—Natalie Browning, Longwood Univ. Lib., Farmville, VA
Kirkus Reviews
2021-01-26
A Canadian writer and illustrator transforms his perceptions of the everyday in his own life into a series of highly personal reflections.
Sun—who holds a master’s degree in architecture from Yale, is a doctoral candidate in urban planning at MIT, and wrote for the sixth season of the Netflix series BoJack Horseman—took three years from a ferociously busy schedule to turn inward and scrutinize “every thought that passed me by.” Though he was supposed to be resting, rather than simply let his mind “meander,” he decided to document everything that passed through his mind: “Otherwise, I told myself, all this break-taking, this intentionally unproductive time, would not be ‘worth it.’ ” Sun opens with an essay about his failure to notice features about an apartment where he once lived—e.g., where a power outlet was located. The topic appears mundane, but it is ultimately symptomatic of what consumed Sun’s attention and left him “burned out”: work. In several essays, the author describes work as his antidote “to…nothingness and emptiness.” Later in the book, Sun muses on the guilt that fuels his work ethic, observing that he wouldn’t get anything done without it. His “go slow” approach—which he admires in parents who “linger at restaurants”—manifests in essays about lessons in observation and the natural world learned from houseplants. In “How To Cook Scrambled Eggs,” for example, Sun transforms several egg recipes into an homage to his parents and the family memories each recipe allows him to rediscover and savor. Illustrated throughout with simple line drawings, this quirky book offers insight into the workings of an exceptionally busy, productive mind as well as the price of living in a hypercompetitive society where “we are all burned out and don’t have enough time” and it’s important to “steal moments away from yourself whenever you can.”
A quietly provocative collection.
