What We’re Reading

Before I Die | Jenny Downham

Rating:

Tessa Scott is dying, and there’s some things she’d really like to get to before she does. Ideas scribbled everywhere around her room. On the wall. On scraps of paper. Her best friend, Zoey, thinks she should gather them together, make a real list, get on with it. Anything’s better than lying about in bed all day. And as much as Tess would like to disagree, she eventually comes to realize she has two choices. Get on with living or get on with death. And since her life has already been cut short, isn’t making the most of the rest of it the best plan?

The list is not necessarily the kind of thing a parent would love. In fact, Tessa’s pretty sure that her dad will hate most of it. But it’s her life. And she wants to get to experience it. After all, what’s the worst that can happen?

Of course, making up one’s mind to go through with something so big and actually doing it are different stories. And when Zoey comes to collect her for their night out, where they intend to take care of number uno–sex–Tess isn’t so keen to leave the house. Nor is her dad keen to have her out late. Zoey cares about neither objection, and off they go. It’s not exactly everything Tessa was hoping for. In fact it might be nothing she was hoping for. But it’s still one off the list. And it’s a start. Which might make it easier to keep going. But nothing can make it easy.

Her relationships are strained at best. Her father is at wit’s end. Zoey comes and goes. She meets the neighbor boy, after a long stretch of watching him through the window, only to get close, push him away, get close, push him away.

The day she decides to say yes to everything lands her in a river, and afterwards in hospital. Her wish for fame leads to a radio interview where she divulges some details her father could have done with out. But once she’s really made up her mind to go out on her own terms, there’s certainly no stopping her.

Not the easiest story to read, in terms of sunshine and happy times, but it’s certainly well worth the read. Tessa is someone to aspire to, when all is said and done.

The Before I Die | Jenny Downham by Jaemi, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 21st, 2008 at 6:29 pm by Jaemi and is filed under Book Review. Find similar posts by selecting and of the following tags: death/loss, england, family problems, friendship, leukemia, terminally ill, ya fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.