Before I Die by Jenny Downham

Paperback, 336 pages

Published May 5th 2008 (first published July 5th 2007)

ISBN

0552774626 (ISBN13: 9780552774628)

original title

Before I Die

setting

United Kingdom

literary awards

ALA Teens' Top Ten (2008), Branford Boase Award (2008), ALA's Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults (2008), The Inky Awards for Silver Inky (2008), Abraham Lincoln Award Nominee (2012)

 

An intensely moving and uncompromisingly honest story told in the words of a 16-year-old girl who is dying of leukaemia. 

My Review
Try to imagine that you have only onths to live, that you know within a couple of months you won't be able to move or to talk or to do any of the things that you have loved throughout the life you have lived. Try to imagine that you are only sixteen years old when all this is happening to you, and that you know there are so many things that you have yet to complete and to do. What would you do if you were in this situation? The novel describes exactly what one girl does in this situation. She forms a list of all the things she wantss to do, things that won't matter because it's not like she will have to pay for the consequences later on. She takes drugs, breaks laws, has mindless emotionless sex... but more importantly she learns to love.

The novel is moving and emotional and really tugs at the readers heartstrings right from the first page. It just seems to be such a real story and the thing is, it very well could be. After all how many people out there are suffering with the likes of leukemia and cancer? Just trying to live their lives, yet knowing that the ribbon that connects them to their body and soul could be cut at any moment without them knowing. This book is very thought provoking in that sense because it makes you think about the purpose and conditions of your life. It makes you reflect, because so many of us do take life for advantage, wasting it when actually we too should be living each day as if it is our own.

For me, I felt myself connecting to the book to all the characters within the pages. I imagined myself falling in love with someone but knowing that I would not be able to spend all my life with them. I imagined my best friend struggling through something on her own because she was too afraid to bring me down with her complications. And it is this that I like about the book. Its the fact that the book makes you sit and think. It doesnt dodge around the subject, it tells it exactly as it is, that life is not all butterflies and rainbows, there is death and storms and negatives to it, and it doesnt matter how much we try to cover it, it will always be there somehow!.

The book is just very effective and it did bring my tears to my eyes because of how real it felt and seemed. I would suggest this book to anyone and everyone because I think its one of those books that is a must read!

My rating