Bea's Book Bind

Fantasy ( or low fantasy ) isn't a genre I'd normally go for but there was something about this book that made me willing to stray away from my more than comfortable genre of Young/New Adult fiction into the unfamiliar territory of Children's Fantasy. Due to the fact I had never read anything by either Siobhan Dowd (whose idea the story is based upon), or Patrick Ness (who I only realised was such an amazing author after seeing him on the news one morning, while promoting another book,   More Than This , which is on my must-read-soon list) , I began reading this book expecting nothing in particular but just to read another book, my oh my was I wrong. I think you can't fully appreciate this story until you realise how this story came to pass; Dowd died of breast cancer in 2007 leaving behind the characters, a detailed premise and a beginning and handed it over to the very capable hands of Patrick Ness. "You do not write your life with words ... Your write ...

I wouldn't call this post a review because I haven't really reviewed anything, nor have I summarised or really critiqued in great detail  but  "that's the thing about pain ... it demands to be felt"  and sometimes you can't express the pain you feel when you read a book that breaks your heart up to the very last word. This is  "not a cancer book" . Sure, a lot of the characters in the book have cancer but it's a classic love story: boy meets girl - boy once had cancer lost a leg (maybe not so classic), girl still has cancer and carries her own tank of oxygen that keeps her alive - girl and boy do a book swap - boy hunts down author of book - boy and girl travel to Amsterdam in search of the infuriating author - boy and girl fall in love, make love, boy admits he's dying - boy dies - boy leaves girl a beautiful love letter. *floods of tears ensue* I think when you read a book that generates so much buzz about it, it'...