Friday crisscrosses Australia with her mother, hearing tales of how her female ancestors have all died of drowning on auspicious Saturdays. Her mother has a knack with weaving tales, and Friday Brown is caught in her web...until her mother is diagnosed with cancer. Friday watches her mother waste away to nothing, until she dies quietly in the night, her lungs filled with fluid.
John Green writes novels for young adults, but you don't have to be young to enjoy them. I'm forty-three, and he's one of my favorite contemporary authors.
Ryan Dean West, Winger to his friends, is determined to take control of his junior year. In the Venn diagram of life, most people overlap, or at least most junior guys at Winger's school, it is that little crescent outside that makes us stand out. For Ryan Dean, it is that he is a 14 year old junior, two years younger than his other classmates. That means he doesn't need to shave, hasn't hit his growth spurt, and has no skill with the ladies.
This was a very engaging, interesting read. I especially appreciated the unusual point of view; this story was narrated by the disease itself. At first, the narrator was mildly suggestive: eat this, not that; run just a little further. As the anorexia began taking over, it became more and more demanding and controlling until it directed every aspect of 15 year old Mike's life. When he tried to make a decision that did not further the purposes of the disease, the anorexia talked to him, tricked him into believing that another choice was better.
When Junior announces that he wants to attend the white school off the reservation he is not only ostracized, but tormented by his own people. As he dips one foot into the strange world of white people and keeps the other firmly planted on the reservation he feels torn between the better life he glimpses at his new school and the life he has always known.
