Jenny Downham's Before I Die is built around a pretty simple premise. Tessa, the sixteen-year-old narrator, has cancer and has run out of treatments that work. She makes a list of things she wants/has to do before she died, works her way through the items, and dies. The book skips back and forth in time from when treatments worked to its present, shows Tessa's continually changing relationship with her family and friends, and is not as much of a downer as it might have been.
I guess that's a positive recommendation.
Last edited by humphreysmar; 01/13/08 04:49 PM. Reason: added adjective
