literally literary

I turned thirty this month. I thought it was going to be traumatic, but it really wasn't. I had braced myself for the flood of emotions... but it just didn't happen. Maybe it's because I was consumed with other thoughts... or maybe because I was surrounded by my favorite people. Or MAYBE it's because I received a gift that transported me back to the age of TEN, and with the average, I felt like I was really only turning twenty.

FLD, a master of The Thoughtful Gift, really outdid himself this time. Imagine my astonishment when I peeled back the wrapping on an original copy of my favorite book from fourth grade, "Six Months to Live." I think I may have fallen out of my seat. The cover was exactly as I had remembered it... Dawn Rochelle, perched in her quilted robe and ballet slippers on the edge of a hospital bed. Fluffy bangs. One-eyed teddy bear. This was the book I checked out from the Bookmobile ONE MILLION times. I was a pretty sunny kid, but for some reason I LOVED sad books about teens with diseases. Turns out I'm not the only one. Check out these Amazon book reviews, submitted by tweens just like me:

A fast read which holds your attention the whole 136 pages.

I think that this book was a really good book. My favorite part was when Dawn and Sandy went the canp and ment the two boys there and fell in love. I thought it was a really sad book and also a really good book. It made me think of the peaople who say that their lifes are bad and then they do not look at the other people. At the end of the book it left you wear you wanted to go and read the next book I think that the sadest part was when Sandy died in the hospital. That is why I think that Six months to live is a really good book and why.

What i liked about this book is that the illness is cancer. I liked that they picked cancer because you loose your hair and it shows that not everyone can have as much as you do.

This was one of the saddest books I've ever read. I highly recommend it.

This book is also very sad. Ever sense her terrible disease, she has felt like a nobody. A nothing. A shadow in a damp and lonely corner.Determination makes this book like no other. When she almost died, it broke her families' hearts, literary.

Lurlene McDaniel is a wonderful writer! I suggest this book to anyone who loves to read or cry.

I guess that explains it: I loved to read AND cry. But beyond that, I think I must have longed for the sort of hand-to-brow drama that went on in Six Months to Live. Dawn's big brother was her best friend, by her side at the hospital, cheering her on in the battle against cancer. My older brother was my nemesis, putting his pet cornsnake in my face and calling me "Maneater." Also, I think it must have been around the fourth grade when my mom started encouraging me to eat fewer milkshakes and watch less television. Freaking Dawn, that's ALL SHE DID. With her perfect perm (my hair never took curl) and her ballet slippers and her champion spirit. It's tough to admit this depressing adolescent novel was "aspirational," but I can't explain it any other way.

This is why turning thirty was not traumatic and why.