Tessa has just a few 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, her new boyfriend, all are painfully crystallized in the precious weeks before Tessa's time finally runs out. "Before I Die" is a brilliantly-crafted novel, heartbreaking yet astonishingly life-affirming. It will take you to the very edge.
I didn't really enjoy Before I Die very much. I felt that I couldn't really connect with the characters. Tessa seemed very bitter and all round a little bit mean, I guess I can kind of see where some of it comes from. It wouldn't be easy being in her position, being so young with leukemia, but she just wasn't a very nice person.
Her best friend was also a little strange. She was very mean to Tessa a lot of the time. I just sort of felt that wouldn't you be nicer, and trying to enjoy every moment that you had with your terminally ill best friend?
So all in all I really didn't enjoy this book very much. But I liked Adam :)
This review is also on my blog The Confessions of a Book Nerd :)
Reading updates
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Started reading
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1 July, 2011:
Finished reading
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1 July, 2011:
Reviewed