Cancer!

On my nightstand is an ARC of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews.  I am having a very hard time getting into it because ...it's about a dying girl.  DUH!  I mean, I already read John Green's The Fault in My Stars.  That's sort of about a dying girl.  And last night, I had the ambiguous pleasure? - honor? - um experience? of reading  A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness.  The person dying in that book is a grown-up girl. 

Writing about dying people is not new in books written for younger people - or in any books for that matter.  But it just feels weird that so many books on the subject of cancer have crossed in front of my eyes this Fall/Winter.  Because of the Dad with cancer thing.  That's why it feels weird. Except, God willing, Dad is not dying of cancer - just of living a long life - and not yet.

I am nostalgic for the days when no one from my immediate family had cancer.  It seems like a very long time ago.

Back to the books.  The Monster Calls set me off on a crying jag!  Conor's anger, guilt and pain as he deals - or avoids dealing with - his mother's cancer and imminent death are absolutely wrenching.  The book served as biblio-therapy for me.  But there is nothing clinical about this book.  Ness creates a monster that forces Conor to face what is going on in his life with some very dramatic results.  The narrative is spellbinding.  This book is a worthy opponent in the Battle of the Books.  Read it, but as with The Fault in Our Stars, keep a box of tissues handy.

The book is based on an outline developed by author Siobhan Dowd who died of breast cancer herself.  I think she would like what Ness did with her story.

As for Me and Earl and the Dying Girl?  I haven't finished it yet but the premise of the book is one I bet a lot of teens can identify with.  Rachel - Greg dated her in sixth grade - has been diagnosed with leukemia and Greg's mom has decided that Greg should spend more time with poor, poor Rachel.  Awkward!  Greg is a good kid.  And he's got a manic motormouth that is very funny.  So his renewed friendship with Rachel seems to actually help her. There's something about film making here, too.  I'll give you my final verdict when I get through the whole book.

Cheer up! The Fault in Our Stars

So, here's a great idea for something to do while dealing with the recuperation of your aging father who is battling lung cancer.     Read a book about two teens who are struggling with cancer and fall in love and one of them is certainly going to die but hopefully not in the book. (Hah!  You think I'm going to tell you if one of them dies?  Read the book yourself.)

Read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.  Really, read it.  (That link takes you to an NPR article and about the book.)

I adored books about dying teens when I was a teenager.  They - the teens, not the books - were always so noble. And brave.  And selfless.  Green's characters are also very attractive and intelligent and literary.  And brave. And witty.  And selfless - sort of.  And sarcastic.  And irreverent.  And in love.  Sigh. 

There's this whole other character, an author, who turns out to be just...oh wait.  I can't tell you what that character turns out to be like because then as you read the book you'll be saying things like, "He's going to save their lives"..or, "She's going to wear clown shoes" or whatever I intimate the author might do.  You can't make me say more than I have already said.

Read the book.  It will not cheer you up.  It might make you grateful.  If it doesn't make you grateful, do NOT let me know.

Dad - How to Save a Life

So Dad's in the hospital since Wednesday when he wwent into radiation treatment with a crazy high fever.  They took the antibiotic drip and the saline/fluid drip out of his arms yesterday and he's much better.  However, he might have been contagious - not - so we all had to wear masks around him.

My Dad never seems to stay down for very long.  He told me on Friday that he had a nice talk with a lady, while waiting in the radiology department, about his work as a Deacon in the Catholic Church.  "No matter what," he said, "There is always reason for joy and gratitude."

Now before you start thinking my Dad is a Saint, he can be irascible, outspoken and argumentative.  But, I'm thinking, if I was battling cancer and forced to lie in bed with needles in my arm, I don't know that the words "Joy" and "Gratitude" would enter into conversation often.  But maybe they would.  I am his daughter after all.

The book has received five starred reviews!

Joy and gratitude don't seem to enter into Sara Zarr's book How To Save a Life, at least not at the start.  Mandy arrives on the scene first in an email to someone about an arrangement she and that someone have made.  The email is purposely vague but the reader guesses that Mandy is promising her unborn child to someone, provided that the whole thing is done the way Mandy wants it done.  In that email Mandy sounds clever, demanding, even wily.

Then we meet Jill, 17, and grieving for the death of her father about a year before.  She is angry and has spent a lot of time pushing people away.  She is neither joyful NOR grateful that her mother, Robin, is opening their home to a pregnant teen and adopting that teen's child. 

This is the story of three women, what they want, how they mesh and how they clash.  Jill's suspicions about Mandy's intentions fuel a lot of the plot.  Mandy's first person accounts soon turn her into a sympathetic character.  Robin soldiers on.

This is the story of three good women.  And the ending - well, maybe joy and gratitude find a place in there somehow.

Busy, busy, busy

I started Kelly Corrigan's The Middle Place last Spring.  I didn't finish it because I was afraid it would be sad.  I do not want to imagine a world without my Dad.  I didn't want to read about Kelly's bout with cancer and her father's illness.  I wanted to pretend these things could never happen.  Now, I hope I can find the book, because, now, my Dad has cancer, too, and once upon a time, so did I.   It might be helpful to read about how someone else navigated different doctors and different schedules and long stretches in the chemo "infusion suite" and long distance calls with brothers and sisters.

My Dad's always told us that life is an adventure.  This is an new adventure, a new challenge, and God willing, we will all get to the other side, wave cheerily to those earnest oncologists and march, hand in hand in hand in hand...(it's a big family) off into the sunset.  We might be singing, too, Tell Me Why in harmony.  It's what we do.

My Mom and Dad, at least 10 years ago.

I have a stack of books to share with you!  HUGE! But this weekend is the Lehigh Valley Monthly Meeting (Quakers) Craft Fair, of which I am the coordinator-ish person AND my daughter-in-law's baby shower, of which I am the hostess.  So I am busy, busy, busy so so so so busy.  (Oh and my husband's birthday.  Poor guy doesn't get much of one this year.)

And Peter, your prize may have to wait a day or two because I have misplaced Darth Paper. If I had a name that told people what I did, it would be Loses Books.  Sigh.  It was promised.  It will be delivered.