Ways To Live Forever

nikolag - I have recently read the book Ways to Live Forever by Sally Nicholls. The book is about an eleven year old boy named Sam McQueen and he has leukemia. He states on the first page that he will most likely die by the time the reader is finished with the book. He comes up with a list before that he wants wants to complete before he dies such as sledding, going to a proper school, learn about UFOs, horror movies , airships, and kissing a girl. Unfortunately he does not finish all the things on his list but he still had his hope. I thought this book was a very sad but intriguing book. I couldn't stop reading this book! I really wanted to know what Sam was going to do next, but in the end I had a fear tears when Felix died. Then on top of that the main character Sam died and that is when I said in my mind, nooooooooo! When Sam died on that hospital bed I thought I was actually there with him. He died peacefully in his sleep. It was like a movie in my mind! The author did a good job with the book, I thought this was a true story but surprisingly it wasn't. This book is realistic fiction because it was a story that could have really happened. This book I think is open to ages 10-and above. There was some use of strong language and the book was pretty sad. Most importantly the plot of the book was amazing. Sam also had some internal and external thoughts. He had to battle leukemia and its stages. This is an example of internal conflict because he is battle something with himself. There was also an external conflict when Felix died and Sam was very sad and was going through a lot. This book was a great book and I would recommend this book to anyone out there who wants to read about realistic fiction that is a little sad at the end.

Starred review from September 15, 2008
This year's answer to 2007's Before I Die
, this first novel written by a 23-year-old Brit likewise features a young narrator with incurable cancer—and, while it doesn't entirely escape the conventions of the dying-child novel, it skirts easy sentiment to confront the hard questions head-on, intelligently and realistically and with an enormous range of feeling. Sam, facing his third recurrence of leukemia at the age of 11, keeps a journal, and among his entries are facts, questions and lists: “Questions Nobody Answers No. 1 – How do you know that you've died?”; “True facts about coffins”; “Why does God make kids get ill?” Sam starts out with a buddy, another terminally ill boy who shares Sam's sense of humor and who with Sam is taught by a visiting teacher (“No dying at the table, Felix,” she tells him in the opening scene when he is mocking melodramatic portrayals of “the poor, frail child... struggling bravely”). How Sam and his family cope with Felix's death and Sam's own inevitable decline—ultimately, with humor, grace and generosity of spirit—will bring on tears; more impressively, it will also help readers address the hard questions for themselves. Ages 9–12.