Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Summary:
Tessa has just months to live. Fighting back against hospital visits, endless tests, drugs with excruciating side-effects, Tessa compiles a list. It’s her To Do Before I Die list. And number one is Sex. Released from the constraints of ‘normal’ life, Tessa tastes new experiences to make her feel alive while her failing body struggles to keep up. Tessa’s feelings, her relationships with her father and brother, her estranged mother, her best friend, and her new boyfriend, all are painfully crystallised in the precious weeks before Tessa’s time finally runs out.
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
Be prepared to cry for hours!!
Customer Rating:
Tessa is a cancer patient, whom the doctors could no longer find a cure. Before she breathe her last, she wrote up a list of things to do (eg. sex, break the law, drugs etc).
The novel was written with a fluent flow, completely in a teenager's perspective. I finished it in a couple of hours, crying straight in the last 3 hours.
So prepare loads of tissues, ladies
A reluctant reader's point of view
Customer Rating:
To start, I do not like books about death/terminal illness/ abuse etc. In fact, it was very out of character for me to have decided to read this book at all. But the book's brief cover flap intrigued me and despite my instincts to get as far away as possible from this particular subject matter- I didn't.
And...I'm glad I didn't.
Before I Die is a touching and poignant novel. You already know the story line from the other reviews so I'll just say simply...I laughed, cried, raged, and even hugged this book. It's thought provoking- over the past two days I read this book I wondered about dying and specifically premature death. I have never been so mentally inspired if not outright stimulated by a book. Tessa showed me the other side of terminal illness, the side of need and fear and resentment all with an offbeat humor and cutting honesty I've never read before. It gave me a lot to think about a lot to be grateful for in my own life.
Before I Die is evocative- there are moments of Downham's writing that astonish me with their sophistication and imagination. She has a skill--no, a craft, with words. There are passages in BID that shine through the melancholy topic of this book brilliantly.
Most importantly, I'd like to touch on the surprise I had for the romantic plot involved in Before I Die. I hadn't really been expecting that at all. I figured this was a fictional memoir of a girl and her first and last hurrah. But it's mostly a love story. That part of the book was fulfilling where Tessa's future was not. There was a fragile balance demonstrated by Downham with Tessa's illness and her boyfriend and it was down right beautiful.
It's strange to me that I would want to recommend this book, a book about death, to my friends...but I will. It's just that good. I'm not completely converted to the genre, but I feel like I've found a real gem. I encourage others to read this book.
Good Book
Customer Rating:
Reading is not my close friend, and if someone asks me how many books that I have read, I would say I actually read the beginnings of many books, but I actually finished about six books. And "Before I die" would be one of the books that I actually enjoyed and finished. I really liked the dialogue between the characters because I thought they were so realistic. Tessa's final months made me think about my life and the people around me, and also those who face illness. It was so sad at the end but I'm glad I read it and I dont think I could ever forget this book. And sometimes i would make a list of the stuffs that i wanted to do in my life Tessa did.
Dumb
Customer Rating:
After reading the reviews and all the hype, I could not wait to read this book. I am so sorry I wasted the time. This book is for 9th-12th grade? I would be upset if my kids read this book. Tessa is 16 and dying and because of that her parents let her do anything? This is such a bad book for kids making everything from sex to stealing and drugs sound like they are fine. The only person I ended up even having any feelings for were the Father and Tessa's little brother Cal. This book had little to do with cancer and dying and I did not feel the empathy I should have for Tessa. I am just sorry I wasted my time reading it. Save your time and money. A Walk to Remember is a much better story.
oh god, how sad i am
Customer Rating:
Tessa is 16 and dying of cancer, and soon she is beyond caring. Suddenly she meets a boy, Adam, and her best friend becomes pregnant- things that suddenly she wants to live for. So she begins to live her life. This book was quite hard to read- it hurt knowing she was going to die, since of course the book is called "before i die". However, it made the book stronger as a whole. I was thrilled with adam and tessa's relationship- though they fell in love quick, it was very believable. However, Zoey was a flaky friend until about halfway through the book when she got pregnant and suddenly became true to tessa. I didn't really understand that transistion, and that part wasn't too believeable. But reading this book made me want to live my life to the fullest. Despite its flaws, it still shines. It's what a book is supposed to be- meaningful. Highly recommended.
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