The Memory of Light by Francisco X. Stork

"I have depression, I say to myself. Saying 'I am depressed' makes it sound like that's all that I am. But that's not all that I am. I have depression, but I am not just depressed. Maybe the night I tried to kill myself, that's all I was. Depression took over and became my all. But I'm a good worker at the right job. I like to write. I'm a friend. I have memories and ...hopes?"

The Memory of Light is an intensely honest and touching novel about a young girl's journey towards healing after a suicide attempt. The novel is all the more profound because author Francisco Stork writes that when he was a young man he too attempted suicide.

Sixteen year old Victoria (Vicky) Cruz wakes up in a room in Lakeview Hospital. She vaguely remembers being in the emergency room having her stomach pumped after overdosing on sleeping pills. Dr. Lina Desai tells Vicky that Juanita Alvarez found her and called 911. Vicky tells her that Juanita has been her nanny since her birth but that she is being sent back to Mexico because of her arthritis. 

At the suggestion of Dr. Desai, Vicky calls Juanita who is overjoyed to hear from her. She tells Vicky her cat, Galileo's frantic meows are what alerted her that something was wrong. Juanita, in trying to understand asks Vicky many questions to which she has no answers. Juanita tenderly tells Vicky she will not return to Mexico until she comes home.

After the telephone call, Dr. Desai tells Vicky she is going to recommend to her father and stepmother that she stay at Lakeview for a few more weeks to attend daily group therapy, to meet with her and to allow the thoughts of killing herself to quiet down.

At Lakeview, Vicky's roommate is Domonique (Mona) Salas. Mona is welcoming towards Vicky and tells her briefly about the other two people, E.M who is in for beating up people including his father, and Gabriel, who are part of the Group Therapy Healing sessions. Vicky meets them at lunch with Mona and finds their discussion of suicide to be honest and real. E.M., muscular and tattooed, states that he believes suicide is an act of cowardice. Gabriel insists that "a person who kills himself can be ill. When you're ill, you can't deal with problems the way healthy people can. No being able to have courage and hope is the illness." Vicky realizes that with these three fragile people she doesn't have to pretend.

The next morning Vicky's father and stepmother arrive to take her home. They plan to have her return to school immediately while she is seen by Dr. Sanez, reputedly the "best young people's psychiatrist in Austin." However, Vicky tells her father she does not want to return home that "If I go back now, it will be like before." Dr. Desai explains to Vicky's parents that a new environment for a few weeks will help her to consider the type of thinking that led to her suicide attempt. Despite his anger and disappointment, Vicky's father agrees to her stay.

As her stay at Lakeview continues, Vicky finds her thoughts of suicide become less prominent as she has daily sessions with Dr. Desai and the GTH group. During one session, Dr. Desai asks them to talk about their fathers. Gabriel who doesn't know his father, talks about his grandfather who is seventy-four and works as a gardener. His grandmother has an unknown mental illness. When his mother died it affected his grandfather deeply and he had a heart attack. He quit school to help his grandfather so they can take care of his grandmother. E.M. won't talk about his father so Mona tells the group about her family. She also doesn't know her father but must cope with her stepfather and her mother, both of whom are addicts. The only good thing in her life is her little stepsister Lucy who was taken away by social workers and placed in a foster home. Mona is desperate to find Lucy.

Unlike the others, Vicky comes from a well-to-do family. Her father inherited his father's brick making factory and grew his own business from there. Vicky's father invests in rundown buildings which he restores and sells for profit. Six months after her mother died, Vicky's father married his office assistant, Barbara. Vicky talks about her mother at the request of Dr. Desai and tells them that her mother was beautiful, loved Spanish and Latin poetry and loved to play Scrabble. But when Vicky was eight, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and died two years later. She spent the last three months of her illness in bed. Vicky's nanny, Juanita brought her meals while Vicky spent time reading to her beloved mother.

After hearing about Vicky, Mona tells the group that she believes Vicky is still sad over her mother's death. In response to Mona's statement about feeling sad over her mother's death, Vicky tells them she feels numb. As the group discusses the sadness Vicky and Gabriel felt after their mothers' death, Mona suggests that Vicky is suffering from depression. It is something Vicky has not considered and it is the first step that she takes towards healing. As the group continues to meet, they grow closer and begin to help one another towards self-acceptance and healing. E.M, Mona and Gabriel each give Vicky a tool to help her cope with life and in return Vicky saves each of their lives.

Discussion

The Memory of Light is simply an amazing book, so well written because it's obvious the subject matter, depression and suicide, are close to the author's heart. As a result, it is a very honest and forthright treatment of depression and suicide. The novel traces Vicky's fragile journey towards healing from depression and suicide and towards learning to find the strength and joy to live again. This journey is portrayed in a realistic and very informative way to young readers so they can have some understanding about depression and see how Vicky journeys towards healing.

At the beginning of the novel, in hospital after her suicide attempt and during her meeting with Dr. Desai, Vicky lacks hope, believing that another suicide attempt is inevitable. "I want to tell her that she's right, that I'm going to try again. Sooner or later, the days, hours, minutes, and seconds of my life will slowly choke me until I feel like the only way to breathe is to die. All the group therapy meetings or private session full of talking or comfortable silences are not going to stop me."

Vicki begins to gain insight into what happened to her when the Therapy Group Healing talks about their families in-depth and Vicky talks about her mama's death from breast cancer. Mona tells Vicky that she believes she is still grieving over her mother's death. "What you were trying to say is that it's normal to feel sad for a while after your mom dies, but it's not normal to feel numb and empty like you did six months after your mom died or like Vicky feels now, which is not normal sadness but clinical depression..." This comes as surprise to Vicky because up until this time depression was only a word. But now it's "a heavy, thick fog, yellow and pale purple, the color of a bruise, that fills up a room with no windows, no air, no light."

This leads Vicky to research depression and to develop an interesting analogy of miner elves who live and work in the tunnels of her brain. Both her sessions with Dr. Desai and her daily contact with the other group members help Vicky to process what happened to her. With deft skill Dr. Desai begins to explore the time leading up to her suicide and what led her to finally move on to killing herself. They explore her father's expectations for her and how these expectations have affected how she feels about herself and her family. Dr. Desai uses the story of the monkey who refuses to let go of the mango and is captured, to tell Vicky that we all have mangoes we are holding onto. "The mango is a view of reality that is not true, a story about ourselves or about our world that causes us pain and keeps us from being open to life as it is." Vicky believes her mango is that she pretends.

The interactions between Mona, Gabriel, E.M. and Vicky demonstrate how the group begins to help one another but the focus is on the main character, Vicky who learns ways to understand herself and her mental illness. Each of the characters in the story impart some wisdom from their young lives that help Vicky move towards healing. For example, Mona tells her to be honest with herself and to make an inventory of her "uglies". "Don't lie to yourself about how you really feel about things or people or yourself." Gabriel helps Vicky to see that the things that make life good and worth living are the "green things" like roses and writing. E.M. encourages her to be brave and work around the "rocks" or obstacles that might be people such as her controlling father.

When the two weeks are up, Vicky finds the strength to confront her parents about going to Dr. Desai's ranch in spite of her father's derogatory attitude towards her fellow patients and his insistence that she try to salvage her academic year so she can attend college. He seems unable to process that his daughter tried to kill herself only two weeks earlier. But part of Vicky's journey is that she now has identified her problem and knows what she needs in order to get well.  "This dark thing, I now know, is my depression. It is something I need to get to know, understand, tame if possible, but I don't quite have the strength or knowledge to handle it yet. It has gone into hiding these past few days because I had help --- it's been five against one."

Ultimately Vicky begins to have hope for the future. It is this hope that allows her to act "as if life were worth living" when a rafting trip on the Natchez River on Dr. Desai's ranch proves disastrous. This hope also leads to Vicky beginning to want things in her life again - a sign that living is taking precedence over suicidal thoughts. And she moves from thinking to acting on those wants, helping Gabriel when he goes into a mental health crisis, finding a home for her beloved Juanita and rescuing Mona from a deadly situation. More comfortable with reaching out when she needs to, when Vicky faces her own crisis, a return to home and school, she finds support in her sister Becca and her voice to place her own care and what she believes best for herself, first. She even has to courage to confront her father when he refuses to take her to Lakeview to see Gabriel.

We also see a gradual shift in how Vicky views herself. When she enters treatment Vicky tells Dr. Desai that she's lazy and doesn't care about anything. She doesn't realize she's viewing herself through the lens of depression. By the end of the novel Vicky has a more positive view of herself as for example when she thinks "I'm a good worker at the right job."

One of the strongest metaphors in the novel is that of light which is part of the title. Dr Desai helps Vicky put her depressive thoughts into perspective by encouraging her to view herself as the sun. "Thoughts are clouds, Vicky. They are not you. The cloud of wanting to die disappears, and if you don't grab it, it will eventually float away. The cloud that says 'I'm lazy and a coward and a phony to boot' floats before you, and you can calmly watch it come and go. You are not the clouds or even the blue sky where clouds live. You are the sun behind them, giving light to all, and the sun is made up of goodness and kindness and life."

E.M furthers this imagery when he talks to Vicky about how he uses Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god of war, to help him be brave in his difficult life.
"...Huichi is about being brave. About not being defeated by anybody or anything. Rising up every day and doing what you gotta do. Shining your light so that people and things around you can live."

Eventually Vicky finds her own Huichi, and that is her mama. In a poem about her mother Vicky writes,
"You hardly see me in the sun
My sparkle's in the stars
When all is dark around you,
I'm the memory of light."

One of the strengths of Stork's novel is the presentation of some of the realities and issues surrounding mental health issues. Stork tackles the image of mental illness head on and Vicky's father is the prime mouthpiece for these views. He doesn't want her to remain at Lakeview and is quite blunt about how he views the people at the hospital's fifth floor. "This is a public hospital. They take all kinds of deranged people. You don't belong here." and later on when Vicky advocates for living at Dr. Desai's ranch, "I don't like you being surrounded by sick people, by...patients in a psychiatric ward." These are statements that would never be made to a loved one if the ailment were physical. The novel also realistically portrays some of the realities people confront when dealing with mental health issues. For example, Mona who has been diagnosed as having bipolar disorder, stops taking her medication, believing it is working against her.

Despite the seriousness of the subject matter, Stork never overwhelms his readers. Although the novel often contains detailed information about mental illness, Stork lightens the mood frequently with humorous dialogue and situations. This is especially seen in the interactions between Mona and E.M. and also when E.M and Vicky's father meet in the parking lot of RC Cruz.

The Memory of Light is populated by a varied cast of characters ranging from the infuriating Miguel Cruz (Vicky's father) to the tough softie E.M., sensitive Gabriel, and the gentle caring Dr. Desai. Even the secondary characters stand out.

Stork on his website writes, "I have faith in the goodness and value of my books. In the case of The Memory of Light, I have faith in the ability of the book to give hope to those suffering from depression and to re-affirm the joy of hope in those who are well. The story of Vicky’s recovery from depression and suicide attempt is a story of hope and of how hope comes to a person’s anguished soul."

The Memory of Light is a brilliant novel that accomplishes what Francisco Stork intended. There are plenty of themes to explore besides the ones mentioned in this post. Well worth reading and highly recommended to teens who want a young adult novel with substance.

Book Details:

The Memory of Light by Francisco X. Stork
New York: Arthur A. Levine Books 2016
325 pp.

All We Have Is Now by Lisa Schroeder

All We Have Now is about two homeless teens who struggle to come to terms with their lives in the face of an impending catastrophe that will wipe out the United States.

The novel opens approximately 28 hours, 25 minutes before an asteroid is expected to impact in the state of Idaho. The government has revealed that an asteroid coming from the direction of the sun is due to impact the Earth causing annihilation for millions and widespread destruction. People have fled the state and surrounding areas and many people have even fled the continental United States.

 Vince Mason and Emerson Steele are two homeless teens who have been living on the street for the last year and a half. In light of the impending disaster, they are considering ending their lives. With no money, no car and having left their families they have no way to escape the impact zone. Their lives have not be great up until this point. "Before, they slept in parks, in alleyways, in backyard sheds. They scrounged for food in restaurant dumpsters, or begged for money on the street. Every day, it was about survival. It was a dirty, ugly life, but they became pros at living that way. " Now with people having left Portland in an attempt to escape the asteroid, Vince and Emerson have been able to find a room in a shelter. They been able to clean themselves and not be ashamed of how they look. They decide rather than wait for the asteroid to hit they will jump off Vista Bridge also known as Suicide Bridge, which has nothing but "cold, hard pavement" beneath it.

However when they reach the bridge, they find a man waiting, presumably intending on jumping. The man introduces himself to Vince and Emerson as Carl and asks them to let him help them. After someone helped him realize his dream of being a fireman, he has helped four other people with their own wishes. But he needs one more and Vince and Emerson are that last wish. Vince tells Carl that every day since he's been on the streets he's wanted money for food, clothes and a place to stay. Carl gives Vince his wallet filled with cash and tells him "Feel rich in these final hours."

After doing this Carl stands on the bridge watching the beautiful sunset before he answers a call from his wife, Trinity. She has returned from saying good-bye to her parents and is waiting for Carl at their home. Carl tells her he gave away both his car and his wallet and Trinity tells him that her car is out of gas. He promises to try to find a way home and asks Trinity to see if she can find a car. Carl tries phoning friends but is unable to contact anyone who can help him and eventually cell service fails.

Meanwhile Emerson and Vince learn that the man who gave them the money is Carl Ragsdale, who is fifty-one years old and lives in Lake Oshwego. They wonder why he isn't with his family at this terrible time. Vince decides that he'd like to do what Carl was doing - help people, give them one last wish. The first person they encounter is a sixteen year old boy named Hayden who can sing and play guitar and who has always wanted to be in a band. After finding food at an abandoned tavern, they travel to a karaoke bar which has remained open. Hayden gets his wish to sing in front of the crowd in the bar. Having accomplished what he wanted, Hayden decides to return home.

Carl has taken to walking since he is unable to find a ride in the direction of his home. He meets Jerry, an elderly man and together they break into a bakery that Jerry's wife used to work at.  After eating pastries and drinking coffee, Jerry falls asleep and Carl is unable to awaken him. Believing he has died, he decides to take Jerry's car and drive home to Trinity. However, before he can get to the car, Carl is knocked unconscious.

The next person Emerson and Vince meet is Jackie, an unmarried career woman who was supposed to travel to Paris in October. At first Jackie can't find her car but when she does, Vince offers to drive her to a special place as a surprise. That place turns out to be a French cafe whose owner, a "good-looking twentysomething guy" named Phillipe, lets them in. While dancing and eating french pastries he and Jackie end up falling for each other. Having accomplished their mission to help yet another person, Emerson and Vince leave taking Jackie's BMW with her blessing. Their next stop is the Multnomah County Library where they read picture books and encounter a woman, Rima and her daughter, Inika who believe that everything will be back to normal in a few days.  This leads Emerson to ask Vince if he believes that there really is an asteroid.

As the deadline for the impact looms closer and closer, Carl struggles to recover from a serious concussion. Helped by a woman and her daughter who coincidentally are Emerson's mother and sister, Carl tries to return the favour and help them locate Emerson. In return he hopes to make it home to his wife.  Vince and Emerson struggle to deal not only with their personal relationship but also with the possibility that things may not be as they seem. Vince also tries to push Emerson to set things right with her mother before it's too late. But some things are not so easily repaired.

Discussion

In All We Have Is Now, author Lisa Schroeder asks her readers to consider what would happen if we had only a few short hours left to live? What would be our regrets, our priorities, our wishes and our hopes? To accomplish this she weaves two storylines together, that of Emerson and her friend Vince and that of Carl Ragsdale. Although they all meet early on in the story and then experience separate journeys, Schroeder cleverly reunites them at the novel's conclusion, showing how we are all interconnected in one way or another. Emerson's narrative is the primary one told in both prose and short poems which are quite lovely.

All We Have Is Now is story about living life to the fullest in the time we have been given. We are reminded to appreciate what we have in life and not to focus on what is missing. When Hayden meets Vince and Emerson he tells them he left home because "I-I couldn't stay there. With them. I just...I couldn't, you know? I snuck out the bathroom window." However after singing in the karaoke bar Hayden realizes that he has a family, that his parents have been good to him and that his slipping out the bathroom window was not justified. He decides to return home hoping for forgiveness and to redeem himself. He is in some ways, the prodigal son.

Making the most of each day we have is portrayed through the actions of the two main characters. When Vince and Emerson meet the twelve-year-old twins, Kailee and Kendall who have been abandoned, they drive them home and take them to an amusement park to distract them from what is happening in their lives and from the larger even of the asteroid impact. Kendall tells them that she wishes things would end happily and that she's afraid about what the future holds. Vince tells them, " 'No, see, you guys are looking at it all wrong...The amount of time isn't important. A hundred minutes or a hundred years. Whatever, it doesn't matter. Just make it count.' When Kailee responds that it's difficult to not be angry about losing out, Vince advises her '...to ask yourself if that's how you want to spend the rest of your life.' " 

Like Kailee, Carl too is struggling to deal with the possibility that everything will end. As he's eating an apple at Emerson's mother's home, he finds "all he can taste is regret." The regret is that he's found something he loves but instead of savouring it in the moment, he is focused on how he will never taste another apple again after that night.

When Emerson takes Vince to a carousel so he can experience a memory he had of his mom so long ago, she asks him if he's mad that he didn't get more time with his mother. But Vince tells her, "Maybe sometimes I am, but I really try not to be. I mean, it's wasted energy, wishing for more. I'd rather spend my time making wishes that might come true."

Throughout the novel, Vince is determined that Emerson contact her mom whom she is estranged from.  One of the ways Emerson has been coping with her mother's rejection has been to ask Vince what her mother and her older sister Frankie are doing. This leads him to describe an imaginary scenario that is positive and happy. However Emerson's fear that her mother hates her is overwhelming. If she doesn't call she can pretend otherwise. "What if her mom hung up on her? What if her mom hated her so much, she didn't even want to know where she was or if she was okay? As long as she stayed out of touch, Emerson could pretend her mother missed her a tiny bit."  As the time of impact creeps closer, Vince convinces Emerson that she needs to go see her family, no matter what she believes their response will be. He doesn't want her to experience regret. "Look, I just know that once you see them, once they see you, nothing else will matter. The past is the past. It's gone, you know? It doesn't matter anymore...All we have is now. Right now."

Like Carl eating the apple, Emerson realizes that she doesn't want to die because she's come to the conclusion that she has something to live for. She has come to realize that she loves Vince and he loves her. Emerson feels "ever-increasing terror about what comes next, and anger at having to go way too soon."  Similarly, Emerson's mother, Rhonda, is also experiencing deep regret over her actions towards her daughter. Her regret is so thick that "Carl wishes he could just cut it away for her."

At a conspiracy theory meeting about the asteroid, Emerson's view begins to change with small things at first. When she is given a piece of pumpkin pie with whipped cream she focuses on how delicious it tastes. Emerson confronts the hurt she has caused her older sister, Frankie when she ran away, and this leaves her filled with regret. Vince tells her she cannot change the past and that there has been good that has come out of her choices too such as their meeting and the good they have done others in the time remaining. Emerson states, "I just can't let myself think about the stuff I wish I could change...You were right. Regret hurts."

One of the many poems which are part of Emerson's narrative, A Way of Life, expresses what Emerson has come to understand, that we must live life not looking back, nor looking ahead. Instead, "Each minute, each hour, spent doing, spent living." In contrast to this are Rhonda and Frankie, who are fighting over what has happened in the past to Emerson. As it turns out, Vince was right; Emerson's reunion with her family helps both her and them forgive and heal. Regrets are in the past.

Schroeder has written an appealing short novel with a timely message about what's important in life.  Well done and an engaging read!

Book Details:
All We Have Is Now by Lisa Schroeder
Point, an imprint of Scholastic       2015
266 pp.

Movie Review: The Fault in Our Stars

The movie adaptation of John Green's blockbuster novel of the same name, will leave theatre-goers and fans of The Fault In Our Stars, weepy but overall, very satisfied. Shailene Woodley stars as Hazel Grace Lancaster and Ansel Elgort as Augustus Waters, two star-crossed teens who both have cancer and who meet at a cancer support group. Dispensing with conventional views about young people with cancer, they are determined to live and love despite the life they've been handed. When Gus reads a novel, The Imperial Affliction, that Hazel gives him, he becomes determined to learn what really happened to the characters after the book's hanging ending. Hazel is shocked to learn that Gus's emails to the author, Peter Van Houten are returned and they are invited to come to Amsterdam to meet him and to talk about the book.


During the time that they have read the novel, made arrangements to travel to Amsterdam and are in the midst of supporting their friend, Isaac who loses both his remaining eye to cancer and his girlfriend, Gus finds himself falling in love with Hazel. But Hazel doesn't want Gus to love her because she feels she is like a grenade, about to explode and obliterate everyone's life with her eventual death. All this does not matter to Gus, who believes he is destined to live a remarkable life. However, a remarkable life will not be Gus's destiny. The trip to Amsterdam while not providing the answers they were hoping for, results in Hazel and Gus falling in love. Hazel begins to realize that this is the only life they get and they have to make the most of it, whatever it might be.

Shailene Woodley gives an emotionally riveting performance as Hazel and is well supported by Elgort as Gus, by Laura Dern as Frannie and Sam Trammell as Michael, Hazel's warm, supportive parents. But each of these actor's performances are also exceptional. The chemistry between Woodley and Elgort is surprisingly effective; their relationships comes across as warm, funny and romantic - very believable. But this movie also manages to capture some of the heartbreak, the terror and the pain that goes with cancer. Just as an example, when Hazel receives an email and calls her mother, her mom tears into her bedroom, fearing the worst. Her response seems over the top, but it's not for the parent of a child, chronically and terminally ill.

Fans of the novel will recognize that for the most part, the movie is true to the novel. The film was shot in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Amsterdam. Anne Frank's house was not used for the scenes in the house, only the entrance was used.

The only part of this movie I felt bordered on ridiculous was the portrayal of a cancer therapy group, in particular one that addressed spirituality. In The Fault in Our Stars, the cancer group Hazel and Gus attend is run in a Protestant church by a thirty-something man, who plays the guitar and who has hooked a rug of the Sacred Heart of Jesus - a solely Catholic image used to portray the mercy of God. The cancer support counselor was made to look like an absolute idiot, who has nothing to offer these young people, except some little ditties about resting in the heart of Jesus. Behind all of this is the hint of the senselessness (and hopelessness) of cancer, the suffering and perhaps even prayer. There is no magical theological explanation about the why of cancer; why some get it and live, why others get it and die, or why some never get it at all. It happens, just like bad things happen to good people, and we make the best of them. We help each other along that journey. And yes, we might also pray - a fact that even the National Cancer Institute recognizes. The NCI on its website indicates that studies show that patients whose spiritual issues are addressed either by their doctors or by support groups do better.

Once the movie moved past this point, it was on more solid ground exploring how young people struggle to cope with a serious illness like cancer, how they are viewed by others and how those around those around them, parents and friends, try to come to terms with illness in young lives. For example, Isaac's girlfriend dumps him before his eye surgery because she can't cope with him going blind, ignoring how traumatizing this might be for Isaac. This sort of insensitivity is common in many events in life, whether it be women suffering from a miscarriage or the loss of a child. It's that continual worry that something terrible is about to happen all over again.

Overall The Fault In Our Stars is a touching movie that will make viewers think a bit more deeply about the reality of young people who suffer from chronic health issues and how we often make illness a barrier to one another. The stellar performance by Woodley in particular, will prod those who haven't yet read the novel, to do so.

Below is the trailer for the movie:

This Star Won't Go Out by Esther Earl with Lori and Wayne Earl

Esther Grace Earl was a vibrant teenager, with her entire life before her; a life a many possibilities. One of those possibilities Esther thought, might involve becoming a writer someday and to that end she kept a diary. From these diaries and from those who knew her comes this beautiful and deeply touching book that is part memoir/part biography about a young girl whose life inspired young adult author, John Green to finally complete a book he had been working on prior to meeting Esther. That novel was the immensely popular, The Fault In Our Stars.

Green met Esther at a Harry Potter convention, LeakyCon in Boston in 2009. They were both Potter fans obviously, but Esther was also a fan of Green's novels. Post-LeakyCon, they continued to talk via Skype and while Green knew Esther was ill with cancer, the internet allowed Esther to have a friendship with Green and others that was not defined by her cancer and her illness. To her internet friends, she was simply Esther. Compassionate, funny and intelligent. Esther became one of Green's many vlog followers (named nerdfighters). As Esther's illness progressed, her "Internet" friends, including Green, soon discovered that this young woman was indeed very ill and was dying. This came about through a Skype chat group which collectively called itself Catitude. As Esther's health began to decline she was able to meet some members of Catitude as well as John Green in a sort of "reverse Wish". In his foreword to this book, Green writes that we often place the terminally ill on a pedestal, claiming for them a uniqueness that has its basis in their illness. But Green felt that Esther was special simply because she was Esther and not because she had terminal cancer.

 Esther was born in 1994 in Beverly, MA. She was the middle child in a family of five children, a spunky girl with wild hair. In 2006, at the age of twelve, Esther, who was living in France with her family,  had been feeling unwell for some time. A persistent cough, shortness of breath and pain in her chest forced her to seek medical help and she and her family were stunned to learn that she had thyroid cancer. Although this cancer usually has a very good survival rate, Esther's cancer was different; she had metastatic papillary thyroid cancer. This meant that the cancer had spread to the lymph nodes in her neck and lungs. Esther had her thyroid and some lymph nodes removed and underwent radiation therapy. The prognosis was not promising. In 2008, Esther took a turn for the worse, and she and her family decided to try two new experimental therapies. The experimental drugs stymied the cancer for a period of time allowing Esther and her family a short reprieve. Esther's condition slowly began to deteriorate and during the summer of 2010 she developed kidney failure. She passed away with her family at her bedside on August 25, 2010.

Discussion

This Star Won't Go Out is a compilation of Esther's diary entries, miscellaneous writings, poetry and drawings. The book also includes a foreward by John Green, entries written by her online group who called themselves Catitude and Lori, Wayne and Esther's entries from Caringbridge a website that helps families with seriously ill children.

Besides being a book about one person's journey through a difficult circumstance in life, This Star Won't Go Out is also a magnificent example of faith in God; Esther by her own admission stated she "was not close to God. I didn't want to deal with Him. I liked enjoying the material things that don't matter...But one day I realized, without God, nothing matters. So, I asked Him into my heart. Look, I don't understand anything, basically, about God except He loves me, He made me, without Him I'm lost." But yet after becoming sick, she really did come to know God: she probably wasn't even aware of just how much she really knew Him.

This deeply moving tribute to Esther Earl is well organized, drawing from many sources, chronicling Esther's life and giving those of us who did not have the privilege of knowing Esther, a very good sense of who she really was. The pink pages are Esther's Caringbridge pages which can be found online, the cream pages are her blog and diary entries, while the light green pages are friends and family writing about her.  Be prepared to cry and laugh through Esther's difficult journey. It is a deeply moving account, because Esther's life proves that one doesn't have to be exceptionally beautiful (although she was very pretty) or smart or talented to make a difference in this world. One simply has to be true to oneself. Esther Earl did all of that as This Star Won't Go Out demonstrates.

The only criticism is that the entries by numerous Catitude members overwhelms the last part of the book, detracting from the message that Esther lives on in the work her foundation, This Star Won't Go Out, does to help families struggling with cancer. Unless readers are a part of Catitude, they will probably find themselves skimming these entries.

The videos Esther Earl made are available on her youtube channel cookie4monster4.  Esther's Caringbridge page : http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/estherearl is still live and you can read about her story, the journal her parents posted online and sign the guest book on her page. Esther Earl is a star whose light will never go out. After Esther's death, her parents, Wayne and Lori founded a nonprofit organization, This Star Won't Go Out (https://www.tswgo.org/) which aids families in crisis with a seriously ill child suffering from cancer. Please take the time to check out their website and if you are a young person looking for a good cause, this might just be one to consider helping out. Both this organization and the book by the same name, This Star Won't Go Out are one of many ways Esther will live on in the hearts of those who loved and knew her, and those of us who wished we had.

DFTBA today in memory of Esther Earl. :)

Book Detail:
This Star Won't Go Out by Esther Earl with Lori and Wayne Earl
New York: Dutton Books      2014
431 pp.