Brianna is just about to start her senior year of high school: all regular classes, plus AP Calc. But despite being a math whiz, she's not really gung-ho about applying to colleges, because she's not sure if her cystic fibrosis will allow her to even live long enough to bother. She knows her time is limited, and so she spends that time with her friends, her family, and yes, with calculus--people and ideas that make her happy. Brianna is more or less a regular teenager who goes to parties, helps her friends through boyfriend troubles and parents' divorces, and just happens to have a terminal illness. Her mortality is never far from her mind, but CF isn't her defining characteristic. She bonds with her calculus teacher (who is himself staring an early death in the face due to heart disease) as they discuss life, living, and the importance of infinitely small numbers--and people.

The writing is a little clunky in places, though: the line "Even the fact that guys were buzzing around Melissa like bees did to that honeysuckle bush near the beach in the summer didn't bother Brianna" was a particular delight to parse. On the whole, though, I liked this better than I'd expected to. It's not maudlin the way Lurlene McDaniel books are; Brianna is very relatable as a character. The novel does require some suspension of disbelief, particularly in that Brianna is not the only student with CF at her high school, but her friend Ashley has it, too. It is a tearjerker, of course, as we head toward the inevitable conclusion, but really this is about Brianna's relationships with the people around her. ( )

I'm wondering as to how I've never heard of or stumbled upon this book before! This book was GREAT. The writing was beautiful.As a person who isn't a fan of mathematics, this book certainly amazed me.Those complicated equations where the answer might be zero, but it isn't- an almost zero amount! Those answers can bring so much hope to a person.

Briana has cystic fibrosis and chances are she won't live long. When she starts her senior year, she finds herself seeking some kind of hope and she finds it through the lessons from her calculus teacher.

I love this quote from the book:

"But here, Ms. Pelletier, is the thing. Without infinitesimals, the calculus as we know and love it simply wouldn't exist. It is these nearly-zero, sort-of-zero, sometimes-zero quantities that allow us to understand the world. Something which seems to be nearly nothing turns out to be crucial to everything. So though I, or for you that matter, or any of us, may be, as a collection of atoms, practically indistinguishable from zero, this does not necessarily mean we are insignificant. Indeed, it may be that we are actually crucially important."

I would say that this is a must read. It's short but definitely meaningful. ( )

Reviewed by Jaglvr for TeensReadToo.com

Brianna Pelletier was born with a death sentence. Her DNA gave her Cystic Fibrosis. The only unknown for Brianna is how long she will have.

It's Brianna's senior year and while her friends are planning for college, Brianna's plans are far simpler: live to see graduation. She never intended to go to college. She never believed she'd survive this long. But things are going pretty good. She's managed to avoid any serious infections and remain out of the hospital. She fears that if she needs to return to the hospital, she'll never leave. Well, she'd never leave alive.

So as senior year progress, she gains insight into what it means to really live, by an unlikely source - her ailing math teacher. Her alphabetically placed study buddy, Adam, hears a rumor that Mr. Eccles was in a band, Love, in the past. Downloading the music, Adam shares the bizarre album, Forever Changes, with Brianna. The music reaches a part of her that she could never put into words. After hearing the music, and then encountering Mr. Eccles one evening on a deserted beach, the two form an understanding with each other.

Through Brianna's dad's gentle love, the nerdy pressure from Adam, and the desire to live courtesy of Mr. Eccles, Brianna takes living to the next step - she attends an information session at MIT and takes the scariest step of her life, sending in her application. This action could bring hope or despair. On one level, she fears that by sending it in, she is hexing herself that she will never live to see her admission to MIT. But on another level, she doesn't want to die and wants some ray of hope, something to live for.

In Brianna, Mr. Halpin shares with readers both a wish to live and a desire to not die, which really are not one and the same. Brianna does her best with the hand she's been dealt. More than anything, she dreams of being like everyone else without a care in the world, but she has greater obstacles to overcome. She does so bravely and without blame. She's an inspiring character to curl up and share a few hours with. ( )

High school senior Brianna Pelletier seems to have it all: she’s smart and popular. There’s one problem though. One huge problem. She has cystic fibrosis and knows that she only has a limited amount of time left to live. Brianna goes into her senior year with an ever increasing fear of death on her mind and a frustration with the heavy emphasis on getting into college, thinking that it is pointless to apply to college with the knowledge that she might not live long to get even a high school diploma.

However, what Brianna finds in school is a somewhat unorthodox math teacher who opens her mind up to ideas she never considered before and teaches her a number of life lessons along the way. His lesson on infinitesimals, numbers so small that they are seemingly meaningless but are in fact the basis for calculus, causes Brianna to start thinking that her life, however short it may end up being, is more significant than she realizes.

The author does an excellent job of getting into the world of high school students (complete with modern-day pop culture reference) and of painting a touching portrait of the relationship between a single dad and his only daughter. The author also successfully explores a number of deep themes, such as the meaning of life and what happens after death, without being overly moralizing.

The flowing dialogic writing and the relatively short length might suggest that this book is appropriate for tweens. However, the foul language peppered throughout along with the heavy life-and-death theme make it better suited for older teens. While math is a huge factor in this book as Brianna’s brain automatically turns even the most everyday situations into a math problem, it is not necessary to be mathematically inclined to enjoy this book. ( )

Brianna's starting her senior year of high school. She's taking AP calculus and her dad really wants her to apply to MIT. Brianna thinks she could probably get in - math has always made sense to her in a way that the real world often does not. But even though her entire class is abuzz with college talk, Brianna's not sure she wants to apply. Brianna has cystic fibrosis. She's 18 years old. She knows that she probably will not live to see her college graduation. Forever Changes is about a girl coming to terms with not only her own mortality but her own infinity.

I loved this book! One of my favorite things is Brianna's great relationship with her dad. I would recommend it to fans of Before I Die by Jenny Downham.

Read more on my blog:
http://abbylibrarian.blogspot.com/2008/11/book-review-forever-changes.html ( )