Maybe One Day by Melissa Kantor
| Maybe One Day by Melissa Kantor | |
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| Category: Teens | |
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Reviewer: Robert James
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| Summary: A real tearjerker about two girls with a wonderful friendship struggling to cope when one is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Highly recommended. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 400 | Date: March 2014 |
| Publisher: HarperCollinsChildren'sBooks | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-0007544240 | |
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Zoe and Olivia are best friends. They do everything together - until Olivia is diagnosed with a terminal illness. As she tries to fight against death, Zoe wants to support her. But how can you adjust to a life where you might have to be without one of the people you love most in the world?
To answer the question that's possibly on people's lips, yes, I cried. (I say possibly because if you're a regular reader of my reviews you probably got to the second line of the summary and knew that I cried!) This is, as you'd expect, a massive tearjerker although there's just enough gentle humour in a few key places to act as a light relief.
Zoe and Olivia are very strong characters; I really liked both - even when Zoe was making bad decisions, I could completely see why she was making them. Also, their friendship is beautifully portrayed and I thought their parents were very well-rounded as well. There's a touch of romance for Zoe here but it never overshadows the main plot of Livvie's illness and the way it inevitably changed the relationship between her and Zoe.
I think perhaps the absolute strongest point of the book, though, is the way that Melissa Kantor captures the reactions of the other students at their school to Olivia's illness. Zoe is so tied up in her friendship with Livvie that she's not particularly interested in any of their classmates and has a low tolerance for many of them, especially the cheerleaders. And from seeing their reactions - from holding a car wash to raise funds to the way they try and support Zoe as Olivia's illness takes its toll - feels painfully true. Yes, there are girls here who are doing things which seem almost laughable (to Zoe as well as to the reader), but they're doing them for the best possible reasons and you have to sympathise with them for not knowing how to cope with someone so young being so seriously ill.
Overall, highly recommended as a really good weepie.
One of the biggest ever tearjerkers for me is Before I Die by Jenny Downham, while In Bloom by Matthew Crow is a moving but surprising funny look at cancer. Moving away from terminal illnesses, Far From You by Tess Sharpe made me cry more than anything else ever, and has the relationship between another fantastic pair of girls at its centre. we can also recommend Life in a Fishbowl by Len Vlahos.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Maybe One Day by Melissa Kantor at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Maybe One Day by Melissa Kantor at Amazon.com.
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