Her best friend gets pregnant, her parents start moving closer to each other, she falls in love with the boy next door all sorts of exciting experiences show themselves just as she can't be there to see how any of it turns out. How do you put limits on or ground a teenager who is going to die? How can you keep her from experiences when all she wants is to feel? She swoops in and out of depression, refusing the leave the bed for days, then suddenly wanting adventure. He and Tessa fight each other as she tries to live what little life she has left to the fullest and he tries to protect her. He feeds her organic food and vitamins in the unspoken hope that somehow, something will change. Tessa's father struggles with his daughter's impending death. Sex with someone she doesn't know or love doesn't fulfill her drugs are strange and take away what little happiness she has in life. She completes much of her list, but the ramifications of some of them aren't what she hoped for.
Others are deeper: fall in love, not say no to anyone for an entire day.
Many of the things on the list are stereotypical of the average teen: have sex, try drugs. Tessa has made of a list of the things that she wants to do before she dies. She lives with her father and younger brother and occasionally sees her estranged mother. It's the story of Tessa, who is 17 and dying of cancer. I finished it a month ago, but it's taken me this much time to allow some of the ache to go away before I could get it down. Before I Die by Jenny Downham was the most difficult book I've ever had to read.
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