Firstly, I don't know if this book is available in the US. And , yes, it's a "teen" book, but it deals with a subject that affects everyone.
It's about a 16 year old girl, Tessa, who has been battling with cancer for 4 years. The cancer is getting worse, and she only has a short length of time left. (It's an agressive leukemia that she has.)
In the time Tessa has left she has a list of things she wants to do. The first on her list is "sex", she enlists her friend, Zoey, to help her with her list. As Tessa gets through the list she gets more and more ill, her Dad learns of the list and tries to help her, after a disastrous "list day" where she said to yes to everything she was asked to do.
Tessa is very angry about her cancer at one point, and takes risks. She takes "magic mushrooms" as she rightly thinks she will never have chance to do risky things if she doesn't do it right now. Her family cope with it as best they can.
She takes life by the horns, as much as she can until the cancer takes over her body completely. Then she still tries to be mistress of her own destiny, she walks out of the hospital, and gets a taxi home, when the consultant wants her to stay put and talk it over with her Dad.
The climax of the book, although predictable in one way, Tessa dies, (but then you know that is what the book is about when you pick it up,) it is hugely moving. I will admit, the last 20-30 pages had me in tears. The ending is not sloppy, but it is very moving. You feel sympathy for Tessa, but not in a sycophantic way, rather in the way she seems to be coping so very well.
The only other thing I would recommend is, if you want to read this book, unless you are a very slow reader, borrow it from your local library, as the accessiblity of the language, and the subject matter make the novel very difficult to put down. I read it in one and half days, and that wasn't sitting reading soildly.
Labels: Young adult