Before I Die Review

Before I Die By Jenny Downham

16 year old Tessa is dying, goes to a club with Zoey and they end up going home with 2 boys and both have sex, but Tessa feels emthy inside. Some time later she meets her neighbour Adam, when she ask him is she can burn something in a fire he is making. A couple of days later the doctor tells her that her condition is worsening, and thatshe should do thing she wants to do, she then decide to put her list back together. For a whole day she goes out with her little brother Cal and Zoey, and she has to says yes to everything - She jumps in a lake and buy a zillion things, and other things and then she ends at the hospital. Another day she gets Adam to get her some drugs. Her and Zoey take them at his house and he drives them to the woods for a whole day. She also shoplifts in the supermarked, but get caught. She takes her dads car and drive, eventhough she doesn´t have a license. Zoey has been acting weird lately, and she finds out that she is pregnant. Her friend can´t figure out if she wants to keep the baby or not, but ends up keeping it and moving to a apartment of her own. Tessa and Adam also begins to have feeling for each other, they become a couple and Tessa has sex where it actually means something. Tessa parents also come closer to each other again, as her mother begins to sleep at their house more times a week. But time is running out for Tessa and she gets more and more mad and wants more things. She also wants Adam to sleep in her bed at night and that comes true, eventhough his mom needs him too. They are also suppose to go on a trip, but Tessa becomes so sick she has to be at the hospital for weeks and she now doesn´t have more than a month left, eventhough there are 6 weeks to Zoey baby is due, but Tessa wants to be there. All of the people in her life are there for her when she is almost dead and her life passes before her eyes. A really good, but strong and sad book about a girl with cancer. I even cried at the end. But i also thinks that is because i myself have had a hard time with the whole dead thing for a while now.
Tessa is a really good lead, and you feel her pain, and you can tell that having sex doesn´t touch her one bit. And then she starts making her list, which is a good thing. Sometimes she sat around feeling sorry for herself and didn´t want to die, while other times she just couldn´t take it anymore. Zoey as a character is strong somehow because I like her light tone of the whole dead thing, but at the same time you just feel that she could be more understanding. Sometimes i thought she was a good character and sometimes i just thought that Tessa could have a friends so much better than Zoey. I will say that when it comes to Tessa´s mom a dad i was suprised how much the whole thing is her fathers burden, you know he mom is not there so much and you would think that when her daughter is dying she would want to. And her father how mány things he does for that girl and he cries so much, it is just so sad. So i would say that besides Tessa her dad is the strongest and most developed character.
Eventhough it is a sad book, there are also some fun moment when Tessa do some crazy things, like when they are high, and they studie all things like they are amazing and the most important thing in the world, is so much fun! it a really good ad alive story that will really touch you.

Grade: 10