All These Lives by Sarah Wylie

All These Lives by Sarah Wylie
Published: June 5th 2012 
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

Synopsis: Sixteen-year-old Dani is convinced she has nine lives. As a child she twice walked away from situations where she should have died. But Dani’s twin, Jena, isn’t so lucky.  She has cancer and might not even be able to keep her one life. Dani’s father is in denial. Her mother is trying to hold it together and prove everything’s normal.  And Jena is wasting away.  To cope, Dani sets out to rid herself of all her extra lives.  Maybe they’ll be released into the universe and someone who wants to live more than she does will get one.  Someone like Jena.  But just when Dani finds herself at the breaking point, she’s faced with a startling realization.  May be she doesn’t have nine lives after all.  Maybe she really only ever had one. 

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All These Lives is a very interesting book. I really enjoyed it. Our main character, Dani, is a character that every woman will love. She’s sarcastic, funny, and a loving person (even though she tried to hide it). The author did an amazing job creating such a character. Dani thinks she has nine lives, and her twin, Jena, is a cancer patient. So Dani thinks she can save her sister by giving her one of her lives. The journey Dani go through to save her sister is dangerous, yet she willed herself to do everything in her power to save Jena. I liked Dani, sometimes she can be too much, but I liked her. I liked her voice and what she represented. Jena and her parents also played a great role in this book. I enjoyed seeing the family relationship before Jena was diagnosed with cancer and after. This book might deal with cancer and cancer patient, but it’s not all the book talks about. It’s about the people around the cancer patient, what they go through when their loved ones are diagnosed with cancer. I really liked that aspect of the book, it gives a glimpse of what people go through when a person they know and love is diagnosed with cancer. To be completely honest, I don’t have any clue about the genre of this book. So don’t go into this book thinking it’s only contemporary because it’s not - well at least I don’t think it is. The nine lives theory made this book seem like a part paranormal. All in all, All These Lives by Sarah Wylie is a great book. I truly enjoyed it, and I recommend it. Rating: 4/5 (Recommend it)