Before I Die » (Reprint)

Before I Die is a brilliantly crafted novel, heartbreaking yet astonishingly lifeaffirming. This is Jenny Downham’s debut novel. She lives in England.

It's really going to happen. They said it would, but this is quicker than anyone thought. Everyone has to die. We all know it. With only a few months of life left, sixteen-year-old Tessa knows it better than most. She's made a list, though ten things she wants to do before she dies. Number one is sex. Starting tonight. But getting what you want isn't easy. And getting what you want doesn't always give you what you need. And sometimes the most unexpected things become important. Uplifting, life-affirming, joyous this extraordinary novel celebrates what it is to be alive by confronting what it's really like to die.

The New York Times - John Burnham Schwartz

If it sometimes seems as though the world is killing itself—the papers are full of spectacular evidence—here, between covers, is something to live for. Yes, a book, a first novel no less, about a 16-year-old girl dying of leukemia. This may sound too depressing for words, but it is only one indication of the inspired originality of Before I Die, by Jenny Downham, that the reader can finish its last pages feeling thrillingly alive…All the way through, Downham gives Tessa the power to tell her own truth, to represent her imperfect, all-too-human self, as well as the imperfect, all-too-human selves of those around her, without regard to the opinions and values of others. The result is as honest and indelible a portrait of a young adult at risk—no, beyond risk—as one is likely to find in recent literature. One of the more surprising revelations to be found in Before I Die is that it's a "young adult novel" only in the sense that readers Tessa's age are perhaps the ideal audience for a true story about death. I don't care how old you are. This book will not leave you.