During the night out Tessa has sex for the first time and talks to Zoey about it and realises at least she did it before she died. This allows Tessa to realise she wants to do multiple things before she dies and the two create a bucket list. The story follows Tessa's life and the activities on her bucket list and how she and her friends cope with her cancer along the way.

I'm not going to reveal too much of the plot as it is vaguely simple but extraordinarily beautiful to read. Through the progression of the novel you see Tessa get weaker and other characters change also. Zoey becomes pregnant and eventually names her child Lauren Tessa Walker, after Tessa of course. Zoey is a fairly reckless character and her pregnancy shows her character development into having to become a more careful human being. Tessa's eleven year old brother, Cal, is very honest throughout the entirety of the novel, for example at the beginning, despite Tessa's illness, Cal is openly honest about he is jealous of how much care she gets, yet later on he is still honest, but refuses to say goodbye as it thinks it might kill Tessa.

Another factor i love about this novel is the way it's written. The style of writing adapts as Tessa's health deteriorates. Towards the end of the novel, Tessa's narration is much shorter, and much more random as she displays her thoughts before dying. She explains how she can hear her family and friends talking, and their dialogue is written in. But in between her family's words, Tessa shares what she feels and what she sees. Through the last pages she goes from mentioning, "dust, glitter and rain" to how the universe began. I love this as it represents the feelings of a real human being. Millions of thoughts pass through our heads everyday.

This novel doesn't sugar coat anything. It is blunt about how Tessa's condition is killing her, and it is honest in itself in explaining how real people deal with these things. Although the novel has a love story between Tessa and her neighbour, Adam, it is explained and defined properly, not like some 'smushy' love story. Tessa and Adam do a lot of illegal activities in the novel and the sex scenes are graphic, but it makes the novel realistic, something that i admired.

This novel took my heart and shredded it into a million pieces. The last few pages made me cry and cry. The simplicity of the novel yet the complexity of the characters and their lives and how they change make it realistic so you believe the book. It is heartwarming and heartbreaking in the same way and i am so happy i read this. The novel celebrates what it is to be alive by confronting what it's really like to die. (I might have stolen that bit from the blurb but it really does explain the book well.)

Apparently having to choose favourite books is like having to choose which body parts you wouldn't miss. I understand that's hard but i can truly say this book is one of my favourites, and i will treasure it for a very long time, and hope that you do as well, if you choose to read it, which i really hope you do.