Teenreads.com -- BEFORE I DIE by Jenny Downham

Books by
Jenny Downham

BEFORE I DIE

BEFORE I DIE
Jenny Downham
David Fickling Books/Random House
Fiction
ISBN-10: 0385751559
ISBN-13: 9780385751551
330 pages

• Read an Excerpt

Tessa is a 16-year-old with a terminal case of leukemia. After four years of battling the disease, Tessa forgoes treatment in order to more fully appreciate the last few months of her life. Not knowing how to cope with the knowledge of a death that is both certain and soon, Tessa makes a list of things she'd like to do before she dies.

Tessa's list contains many of the things teens are curious about, especially those that exact a heavy price. Knowing she will soon die means that Tessa can experiment with sex, drugs and criminal behavior without having to endure their consequences. With the help of her best friend Zoey, Tessa rushes headlong into the experiences she believes to be emblematic of being alive. What she discovers is that life and death are more luminous and complex than she ever could have realized.

Not a sentimental teen “sickie,” BEFORE I DIE grapples with some of the larger doubts and fears we all experience in facing our own mortality. I am particularly grateful to author Jenny Downham for not beginning the book with a list typed out in the first chapter. We only discover what's on Tessa's list as she experiences them --- and it changes as Tessa becomes sicker. Her initial desires for wild teen transgressions are replaced by simpler longings, whether it's as profound as the company of the people who love her or as a prosaic as another cup of tea.

The author uses a few tricks to get the full emotional range out of Tessa's experiences. One of the characters becomes pregnant, which highlights the life cycle. Tessa contemplates fetal development at the same time she monitors her own body's decline. She also manages to fall in love between starting her list and taking her final breath. Instead of feeling manipulated by these developments, I found myself both elated and heartbroken.

Downham's description of the disease is unflinching. Even though Tessa is refusing chemo, the doctors still monitor the progression of her disease. Tessa's final days aren't pretty; the last few pages of the novel are filled with the grief and panic of her family as they hear the “death rattle” of fluid build up in her lungs. The author does not rely upon popular ideas of the afterlife, and the characters in this book do not spend a lot of time reflecting on them. Instead, Tessa is comforted by the idea of the larger life cycle. She thinks of herself as star dust:

"...when I die, I'll return to dust, glitter, rain.... I want to be buried right here under this tree. Its roots will reach into the soft mess of my body and suck me dry. I'll be reformed as apple blossom. I'll drift down in the spring like confetti and cling to my family's shoes.... In the summer they'll eat me. Adam will climb over the fence to steal me, maddened by my scent, my roundness, the shine and health of me. He'll get his mum to cook me up in a crumble or a strudel and then he'll gorge on me."

This vision is a rare fanciful moment in a book that focuses primarily on moment-to-moment impressions of living and dying. At its core are the things for which we long. Should our deaths be defined by a list of accomplishments to follow us to our graves? Or is it measured by the love of the people who accompany us to its borders?

When Tessa asks her boyfriend to stay the night with her, saying, "I want you to be with me in the dark. To hold me. To keep loving me. To help me when I get scared. To come right to the edge and see what's there," she is voicing something for which we all long and fear. Her boyfriend’s response is equally as recognizable: "What if I get it wrong?" he asks.

BEFORE I DIE is not an easy book to read. But it does provide a much needed antidote to all the books and articles about places to see and things to eat “before you die.” Most of us will not leave this earth disappointed that we never got to go to Disneyland. When we do die --- as we all will one day --- we should be as lucky as Tessa to be allowed a death that is comfortable, meaningful and surrounded by the love of friends and family. Ultimately, Tessa's regret is not for those things that she hasn't tasted or seen but a simple plea of "I don't want to be dead. I haven't been loved this way for long enough."

--- Reviewed by Sarah A. Wood

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