Tessa has just months to live. Fighting back against hospital visits, endless tests, drugs with excruciating side-effects, Tessa compiles a list. It’s her To Do Before I Die list. And number one is Sex. Released from the constraints of ‘normal’ life, Tessa tastes new experiences to make her feel alive while her failing body struggles to keep up. Tessa’s feelings, her relationships with her father and brother, her estranged mother, her best friend, and her new boyfriend, all are painfully crystallised in the precious weeks before Tessa’s time finally runs out.
Thoughts:
3/5 stars.
I read this novel just after John Green's The Fault In Our Star (which is just...amazing), and though it can't come anywhere close to my feelings for TFiOS, I still felt this was a heartbreaking story.
Tessa has been fighting leukemia for several years now, and her chances for living are slim, so she decides to set out and finish a list of things she would like to do before her time comes, accomplishing most of them with her best friend, Zoey.
The beginning of this book made my insides clench with anger towards Tessa's best friend, Zoey, who I felt was naive, insensitive, and cruel towards her friend who was going through so much. Though her actions were explained later throughout the story, I just couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that Tessa put up with her. Her actions in the beginning just totally ruined the whole story for me. Tessa's dad was a character who I felt most emotion towards. He didn't want to see his only daughter die so young, being in denial for the most part of the story, and never putting any of his pent up anger or stress on Tessa, even when she was being a pain in the arse (aha, see my British slang there?). Adam was an OK male character for me, certainly no Etienne St. Clair, but I started to feel some sympathy and love for him towards the end.
Most of the tasks Tessa wanted to accomplish were ones normal teenagers would experience during their high school or college years, and were pretty practical for what one would want to experience before they did die. I fancied Tessa's innocence, and how we slowly saw her become introduced to this world she might have experienced later or even earlier if she had lived a normal life without this disease eating her body away.
Jenny Downham's writing was quite a spectacular sight. She has magical powers to wield words to make a perfect sentence, a perfect story. Though the beginning of the story was mediocre and was kind of just rushed, I still was awed by her writing. She didn't take this topic lightly, and really gave you the impression that you were in the mind of girl who was literally dying. There were many masterful scenes and quotes that made my brain explode in gray matter. I truly am impressed by it. I also enjoyed the setting of a suburb in England and use of British words, for I'm a major anglophile myself.
If you are interested, Jenny has also came out with another novel, You Against Me. I may pick that up soon.
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