Before I die

by Jenny Downham

David Fickling Books, $15.99

If you knew you had only a short time left to live, how would you spend your time?

This is a question that no child should have to consider, but Tessa, narrator of “Before I die,” is a 16-year-old with leukemia who spends her last months fulfilling a list of her desires.

“Before I die,” a young adult novel, is a book molded around illness and death — the physical disintegration, the battle between a desire to live and the body’s unwillingness to listen. Yet the novel does what a story about dying should: it reaffirms the importance of living. Tessa tests the limits of living a truly free life, one uncomplicated by a fear of consequences.

Tessa is smart, curious, angry, expressive, funny, and sexually ready. First on her list is sex — the possibility of first love is too fragile a concept to consider for someone close to death. Downham portrays teenage longing acutely, only in this case, the need is imminent and desperate. Next on her itinerary: One day of saying yes to everything, breaking the law, and taking drugs.

Tessa takes her family and best friend with her as she stumbles along her path of discovery. Her dad is doting, kind, and considerate; the saddest, most wrenching moments in the novel are when he demonstrates that love. There is her brother Cal, who is young enough to comfortably make jokes about her imminent death. Her best friend Zoey is temperamental and a bit of a slut, but she cares for Tessa in her own way, and is a devilish accomplice. And then there is Adam, the next door neighbor, a boy who tends to his mother and their garden, and has become an adult before his time, much like Tessa. Her first impression of Adam’s mum: “She has the saddest face I’ve ever seen, like she drowned once and the tide left its mark there.”

Although the book is intended for a younger audience, “Before I die” is not a simple read. Tessa’s story is beautifully doomed, for even as she gets what she wants and needs, her pleasure is short-lived. A first-time British author, Downham has written a novel that engages in a way that can be uneasy and uncomfortable, but Tessa’s discoveries about the human connection are real, and valuable for any age to read. Dying is messy, and Tessa shares how it feels, smells, tastes, and breaks her heart. But she never loses her dark wit, even when her doctor shows her how far the cancer’s progressed: “He has some slides with him to prove the point, passes them round like holiday snaps, pointing out little splashes of darkness, lesions, sticky blasts floating loose. It’s as if a child with a brush and too much enthusiasm has been set free with a tin of black paint inside me.”

“Before I die” will leave you brightened by Tessa’s lust for life and sobered by the reality that everyone’s life is destined to come to an end. This book asks the question: what have you done before YOU die?

Reviewed by Colleen Smith Armstrong