All These Lives

Okay. So I just finished reading this novel for the second time. And before you read the review please note TWO THINGS: 1. I do not usually read YA (I'm an adult fiction author... adult as in--- for grown ups, not erotic or anything) and 2. I'm biased because I've known the author online for a few years.

I've read many of the reviews of this book, which is why I read it again. I'd like to take a moment to address the issues that many readers have with Dani. (The MC of the book)

Dani is reeling from the reality that her twin sister has Cancer. AND she (even though they are twins) is not a match for any sort of cellular treatment. Here's the thing. When the book opens, Dani has already been going through ALL THE FEELINGS. So, it seems very show more organic to me that she would be defiant, defensive, and downright ANGRY. And this type of reaction makes many moments (when we see the REAL Dani shining through) even more powerful. I wanted to take her in my arms and love her. I wanted to nod my head and say "YEP, That's EXACTLY how I would react.)

All in all, this book has many things going for it: 1. It's a page turner. (I have to be involved with a book from page ONE for me to finish it) 2. The situation and characterizations in the books are REAL. Not sappy, or sophomoric. Real. 3. The "soft" paranormal element is absolutely fascinating and I found myself thinking about it over and over again in terms of my own life and my own relationships.

This book makes you think. And cry. And laugh! The author is so good at portraying these characters that she can actually make you laugh throughout all the sadness. In the end, it's a hopeful book. And it stays with you long after you leave it. So, that's my review. Thanks for reading it! show less

How would you react if you found out a loved one was facing a battle against cancer? Would you deny the possible and pretend nothing has changed? Would you immerse yourself into the physician's recommended regime to optimize the impact of the medicines? Would you distance yourself against the inevitable? When faced with the potential death of a loved one, everyone reacts differently. All These Lives is a poignant and amazing look into one family's struggle with the news that every family hopes never to hear.

Dani is one heroine with whom all readers will empathize. Her pain is physically palpable. Incredibly, Ms. Wylie uses a dearth of words to create this effect, but she does so with tremendous success. Dani is so convinced that she has show more nine lives that a reader is never completely sure whether it is a figment of her imagination or not. To say that All These Lives packs an emotional powerhouse is an understatement of the highest magnitude.

All These Lives is a gut-wrenching look at sisterhood and family and the impact of terminal illness on these relationships. Ms. Wylie captures the trauma involved and the various coping mechanisms with perfection. As a result, the reader is taken on an emotional roller coaster as they navigate through Dani's multiple and conflicting emotions at the possible loss of her sister. It is an amazingly powerful story that lingers with the reader well after the last page.

Acknowledgments: Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for my e-galley! show less

I love stories about sisters. As a person who both is a sister and has a sister, there's something I can relate to in books about sister-sister relationships. ALL THESE LIVES is absolutely a sister story -- but it's also gripping, romantic, tragic, and chilling.

In ALL THESE LIVES by Sarah Wylie, sixteen-year-old Dani is super close to her fraternal twin Jena. Dani's mother has always joked that she had nine lives. She's survived twice when she shouldn't have, which makes her wonder if her mother's sentiment is more than just a sweet joke. Maybe it's true. Which is totally unfair, because while Dani is healthy, even landing auditions as an aspiring actress, her sister Jena has leukemia. The only thing that can save Jena -- whose medicine show more has made her so sick she can't go to school -- is a bone marrow transplant, and Dani isn't a match. She feels helpless. Until she realizes that every time she gets into a scrape -- and survives -- Jena gets a little better.

What starts as an experiment to help her sister quickly becomes a whole new level of self-destructive. Dani has reached a breaking point, and will seemingly stop at nothing to save her sister, even if it means destroying herself.

ALL THESE LIVES is wrought with suspense and rich with atmosphere. It's a great novel for those who, like me, love sister books and also for those who, um, also like me, read every Lurlene McDaniel ever in 7th grade. ALL THESE LIVES is a page turner, and Dani's voice is expertly written. Definitely one to check out on a rainy summer night. show less

This book is loaded with emotional cliffs and we drop off more than one as we navigate, for a brief time, in the life of Dani Bailey's complicated and decidedly depressing life. Not that Dani does anything to make it better. But her twin, her other half, the one who knows her best, the one who she promised when she was six and had the chicken pox that she would die for her, is dying right before her eyes and she can't stop it. But she has this odd theory that she has nine lives from something her mother told her when she survived a car crash when she was little. And she thinks when Jena is at her worst, if she gives up one of those lives, then Jena will feel well. And so she goes from one suicide attempt to another without anyone really show more understanding what is happening. Except for Jack.

Dani and Jack have known each other since kindergarten and apparently Dani has been bullying Jack verbally since then. She loves to tease him and make him blush. But now that things have changed in her life, the stakes are higher and suddenly Jack is talking back. Somehow he knows what's going on and like everyone else, she uses her humor as a defense to push him away. Dani has essentially become a stranger to herself. She doesn't know who she is without Jena and she's so afraid that Jena is going to die that instead of savoring her moments with her, she pushes her away and stays away as much as possible. But to think "I will go on existing without her. Wear dresses she has never seen. One birthday cake instead of two. The thought is so absurd that I almost burst out laughing." That's what she thinks as tears roll down my cheeks.

Dani's parents make her start seeing a therapist after she crashes a motorcycle and she's still denying herself any help. If they could only see what we could see, they would put her on 24 hour lock down, and I'm not one to kid about that. She is a danger to herself always. Her biggest fear is being left alone without her twin. Seeing that empty chair at the table for four. Being the one left behind. Some of the last pages are the most profound in the story which I can't share of course. But it makes me wonder who is more scared, the person dying or the ones left behind?

Dani does crash land literally. And she has to decide is she going to quit before she even knows if her sister makes it through the cancer? Or is she going to live the life she's been given, considering she's wasting the one she'd do anything to give to her sister, which is impossible. She has a wicked sense of humor, which she keeps despite everything, but I think I'd be exhausted keeping everyone in my life at arm's length. And in the end, she finds out she isn't as enigmatic as she thought.

I'd definitely recommend this for YA readers that can handle death and suicide. It's heavy on both.
I received a copy of this from MacMillan Children's Publishing through NetGalley for review. The opinions expressed are my own. I was not compensated for my review. show less

You should all know by now that I am a sucker for a good contemporary. The more it makes me cry, the higher it goes on my list of favorites. But I don't like them all. Because these stories are realistic and I can't rely on hot vampires or thrilling action scenes to get me through, it has to be a story that sucks me in. It has to be about a character whose story I can't stop thinking about when I'm not reading.

All These Lives did just that. I'd picked up a few other review books prior to grabbing this one and they all failed to hold my attention until I got to Dani. She's got this rough exterior that made me want to crack it, so I could look inside and see all the broken little pieces she was trying so hard to hide.

She also has a show more tremendous amount of love for her twin sister and this struck a nerve in the sister center of my brain. I have many sisters. I couldn't begin to think about living without even one of them. So, it was easy for me to sympathize with Dani's situation. She doesn't know how to deal with a sick sister so she avoids her. But more than anything she wants Jena to just be okay again. Throw in the fact that Dani has had a few run-ins with death and cheated him, and you've got yourself a confused little girl who thinks she can transfer some of her extra lives to her sister.

Realistic and vivid, All These Lives is an emotional, heartfelt tale of two sisters in an excruciating situation. It broke my heart a little bit but I really enjoyed it. It's easy to read the synopsis and classify this as a "cancer book" but it's not. It's not out to manipulate emotions or to force sympathy. It's more about Dani coming to terms with being very much alive than it is about Jena's illness. In the end, it's about life, not death. show less

Wow! What a powerful book. I must admit that I was a little thrown by the “nine lives” reference in the summary. I guess maybe I expected a touch of paranormal, or maybe magical realism here, kind of like Nova Ren Suma’s “Imaginary Girls”. The covers are very similar, but that’s where the similarity ends.

Sixteen-year-old Dani is a bit jaded with life. Her fraternal twin, Jena, has cancer and she’s slowly wasting away right before Dani’s eyes. What Dani doesn’t understand is why she is always so lucky. She’s had several experiences where she should have been dead, but she manages to come out fine (hence the “nine lives” belief). Why was she blessed with all of the luck and not Jena?

Dani is kind of a brat, and if show more the plot had been different, I probably would have hated her. She’s very sarcastic and acts almost as if she is entitled (mainly at school and around kids her own age). The beautiful thing about the book is how the author uses such strong, beautiful prose, which is a stark contrast to Dani’s personality. Since the story is told from Dani’s POV, this told me that Dani’s harsh personality was merely a protective shell, and inside there lives someone soft and a little fragile who is being protected by the tough exterior.

I really enjoyed the family dynamics. The parents felt real and the relationships between the family members did as well. I loved how Dani’s fragility was more evident around her family, and the bond between she and Jena was nice.

If any of you are turned off by the cancer aspect, don’t fret — this isn’t your typical cancer book. It felt different to me for some reason. It’s also not all doom and gloom and family drama. There are several humorous scenes as well as a little romance to balance it all out. My only real issue was that I was hoping for a little more closure in the end, but it wasn’t enough of a loose thread to leave me feeling cheated. This is a great book, and if you are a fan of contemporary dramas, I would recommend it. show less

Review originally posted here.

All These Lives in the latest in my Apocalypsies challenge. Wylie has a deft prose style with its own unique tempo. The writing is fairly simple, but in a natural way, not in a talking down to teens or the author doesn't know any better kind of way. The diction and syntax is so clearly Dani. This is the kind of story that has to be told in first person.

Dani is a serious ball-buster. Put simply, she's a bitch. She doesn't obey her parents, she delivers killer insults to any classmates dumb enough to antagonize her (I LOVE when she tells people off), and she doesn't do her homework. In her desperation and sadness over Jena, she has but one joy in life: flirting salaciously with Jack Penner, nerd. Their show more relationship definitely was my favorite thing about the novel. They had this awesome, highly awkward dynamic. Plus, you know how I love my nerdy boys!

As bad (or badass) as Dani is, I got the distinct sense that pre-cancer Jena was worse, that Jena was the one who would instigate trouble, and that Dani desperately wanted to be as cool as her fraternal twin. My theory is that as Jena receded Dani began imitating her personality, perhaps to an exaggerated degree, either to inspire Jena to recover or to make her feel as though Jena was still with her at school. However, nothing's really said about how Dani used to be. All you get are vague hints of the past. Trying to piece together life before was definitely a favorite aspect of the book.

All These Lives is about cancer, so I probably don't need to tell you that it's not exactly an upper or a beach read. Much of it is insanely depressing. What I love, though, is that you get to see echoes of the real Jena emerge sometimes on good days. You don't get to see that for a while, and the story definitely picked up when I got to know Jena as a person, not just a pile of blankets. The cast of important characters is very small (Dani, Jena, parents, and Jack), but they're all very well-drawn. It's especially cool that the characters develop throughout the series, both actually and just through Dani's perception of them.

The one thing that didn't work for me was the concept unfortunately. Dani is convinced, because of a joke her mother made when about how they both had nine lives since they survived a couple of accidents, that she really has nine lives. She also heard some folklore about cats having a differing amount of lives and that, when one lost a life, the life could go to another cat. Because of this, she decides she needs to 'lose' her lives, so that her sister can live longer. This just took the whole invincibility of youth thing too far for me. The whole thing was so inconceivable to me (at least in the real world; it might work in a fairy tale setting) that I felt myself drawing away from Dani. I had trouble relating to her, even though I adored her bitchiness, because I could not comprehend her thought process.

Depending on how you feel about the premise, All These Lives could be a much better read for you. Wylie's novel offers a unique lens on dealing with cancer in a loved one. As an added bonus, Wylie avoids YA tropes, and does her own thing. Though this wasn't a perfect read for me personally, I definitely intend to read more Wylie! show less