Product Description

Tessa has just a few 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, her new boyfriend, all are painfully crystallized in the precious weeks before Tessa's time finally runs out. "Before I Die" is a brilliantly-crafted novel, heartbreaking yet astonishingly life-affirming. It will take you to the very edge.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #919 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Review
With only months left to live, 16-year-old Tessa makes a list of things she must experience: sex, petty crime, fame, drugs and true love. Downham's wrenching work features a girl desperate for a few thrilling moments before leukemia takes her away. Although Tessa remains ardently committed to her list, both she and the reader find comfort in the quiet resonance of the natural world. Tessa's soul mate, Adam, gardens next door; a bird benignly rots in grass; psychedelic mushrooms provide escape; an apple tree brings comfort; and her best friend, Zoey, ripens in the final months of pregnancy. Downham's lithe, facile writing creates a chiaroscuro of life and death, of organic growth and decay. Although Tessa begins to see herself within the natural continuum, she still feels furious with her lot. She lashes out and behaves cruelly at times, making her believable to teen readers. Because her experience feels so palpable, readers will believe that the novel's final pages might offer a crystalline vision of death. Lucid language makes a painful journey bearable, beautiful and transcendent. (Fiction. YA) (Kirkus Reviews)

Heat
'A novel that won't fail to touch those who read it...will make you happy to be alive'

Synopsis
Tessa has just a few 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, her new boyfriend, all are painfully crystallized in the precious weeks before Tessa's time finally runs out. "Before I Die" is a brilliantly-crafted novel, heartbreaking yet astonishingly life-affirming. It will take you to the very edge.

Customer Reviews

The most wonderful, insightful book I have ever been lucky enough to read!
This book is one if the best books I have ever read! It is well written, sensitive, insightful, emotional and very moving.

It is the story of a 16 year old girl called Tessa who is terminally ill with leukemia; she is not ready to die and wants so much more from life. She makes a list of things that she would like to achieve before she dies, and what follows is a story of her trying to live life to it's fullest, trying her hardest before she gets too weak. It makes for such a heartwarming read as you are willing her on, wishing her to feel all the things that she should feel in her life. This could have easily become a depressing book but it is not at all, it is uplifting, positive and life affirming.

I defy anyone who reads this book to not...a) cry or well up.........and b) feel blessed to be alive!

I would definitely recommend this book, it is absolutely amazing!

Beautiful
This is such an amazing book. It only took me 3 days to read, but I loved it to pieces. It is written in the most delectable way, and makes you just want her to carry on living and breathing along with her family forever. This moved me tears, gorgeous book. I'd recommend it to all who have read the synopsis but are not too sure whether to spend money on it. It's amazing, do it.

A really moving read!
Tessa is just a young teenage girl when she is struck by leukaemia and after many failed attempts at treatment Tessa and her family must face up to the fact that she is going to die. Instead of just wallowing Tessa decides to make a list of things she wants to do before she dies, including having sex, taking drugs and getting her seperated parents back together.
Things happen that she doesn't expect and that weren't on the list like love and a suprise from her best friend but Tessa is getting wealker throughout it all.
I never really cry at books but I welled up numerous times whilst reading this, some of the most heart wrenching moments were between Tessa and her younger brother. The book is beautifully written especially the final parts and the letters Tessa writes to her loved ones are sure to bring a tear to your eyes. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to read a weepy!