Reading Rants! Out of the Ordinary Teen Booklists!

Sixteen-year-old Tessa Scott has incurable leukemia. She is going to die, probably before next spring. “It’s really going to happen…I really won’t ever go back to school…I’ll never go to college or have a job…I won’t travel, never earn money, never drive, never fall in love or leave home or get my own house. It’s really, really true.” But Tessa isn’t about to take the matter of death lying down. Instead, she composes a list of all the things she wants to do before the cancer takes her. Have sex. Spend a day saying nothing but “yes” to every question she’s asked. Shoplift. Try drugs (besides the kind she takes for her cancer treatment). Drive a car. And maybe, if she’s lucky, fall in love. Meanwhile, her surrounding family and friends each struggle with their own feelings about Tessa’s impending death: her desperate father, who spends his days searching the Internet for alternative therapies; her distant mother, who copes by pretending everything is alright; her little brother Cal who fusses over her one moment and taunts her the next; her best friend Zoey, who manages to be both selfish and supportive; and finally, her next-door-neighbor Adam, who, in the last months of Tessa’s life, unexpectedly becomes the love of her life. But no matter how much they all care about her, Tessa will have to finish the list–and her life– on her own. My adolescent friends, I never thought I would find the book that could knock my much beloved and oft-read copy of Norma Klein’s sob-inducing Sunshine (also on this list) out of the top tearjerker spot in my heart. But Before I Die has done it. Like Sunshine, it’s not sappy, corny, or saccharine. It’s just a very clear-eyed, realistic portrayal of what it means to die young, and how it feels to die from this particular disease. Downham pulls no punches, she takes you with Tessa right to the very end, an ending that you won’t forget, now or ever. To heck with the box of tissue, you’re gonna need stock in Kleenex to finish this one. But believe me, I’m not crying when I say this is one of the best books of 2007! (4 weepies)

Bec is a college student at loose ends. Not crazy about her advertising major, she’s successfully avoided deciding what to do with her life thus far by partying hard with her roommate and best friend Jill and carrying on a guilty affair with a married professor. Then, while looking for a new part-time job that pays more than waitressing, she answers an ad for a home health-care aide. Expecting a weak, bed-ridden old lady, Bec is surprised to find that wheelchair-confined Kate, afflicted with Lou Gehrig’s disease, is young, smart, and sophisticated, with a wicked sense of humor. Like this exchange: “‘Oh my god,’ I said embarrassed. ‘You think I’m like those TV movies where the person with the disease teaches everyone how to live.’ Kate laughed soundlessly. ‘It’s always so nice of us.’” When Bec begins working for Kate and her husband Evan, she discovers a whole new world of witty conversation, gourmet cooking, and urbane dinner parties. Soon Bec is so immersed in Kate’s life that it becomes difficult for her to distinguish where Kate’s life leaves off and her own begins. Kate is dying, but Bec’s life has just begun. Will she ever be able to establish her own identity and personality while under Kate’s charismatic shadow? This sharply observed novel, full of painful realizations, hilarious conversations and some of the best food descriptions I’ve ever read, perfectly captures that time in our early 20’s when our adult identities are beginning to form and we are so easily influenced by those around us whose personalities are set and stronger than our own.