Wow, I still can't believe BEFORE I GO is a debut novel. Colleen Oakley just ripped my heart out and yet, I couldn't stop reading. I read this in one sitting and before I knew it, I was finished. It's been three years that Daisy's cancer has been in remission. But on that night when they should be celebrating three years, cancer free her doctors tell her, her cancer has returned. Not only is it back, but it's stage four this time. The doctor also tells her she only has months to live. What? How can this be? She is only twenty seven and now she is dealing with cancer again for the second time! This is not fair at all and of course she is devastated! How can she even tell her husband that it is back?
As Daisy comes to accept the fact that she is going to die she comes up with an idea. Her husband needs someone to take care of him. Jack is absent minded, messy, and very unorganized. How is he ever going to survive on his own? Daisy sets out on a quest to find Jack a new wife. At first Daisy feels good about doing this but then it starts to hurt her.....how can she do this? She wants to introduce Jack to the perfect woman for him, Pamela but it turns out that they already know each other. Daisy never thought that finding a new love for Jack was going to hurt so badly.
I knew BEFORE I GO was going to be sad, but I had no idea I would be balling my eyes out reading it. Colleen Oakley wrote a story that made me think about if I could do something like what Daisy is doing the whole time I was reading. Anytime a story makes me think, I know it is one I'm not going to forget. Every chapter is more heartbreaking than the last one. You can see Daisy grieving, getting angrier, pushing Jack away, trying to find her replacement, getting jealous when someone comes in the picture...and getting sicker and dying a little bit more with every page.
BEFORE I GO is a serious book about a tragic disease. If light and fluffy is your thing then look elsewhere. If you can handle a well written emotional story that makes you wonder if you could handle a situation like this, then read this story! You won't be sorry! I finished Daisy's story with tears in my eyes and a huge lump in my throat that would not go away. And then my heart was shredded, broken in a million pieces. The last chapter and every single one of those million pieces broke into even tinier pieces and I cried like I haven't cried in years. I finished the book, crying, turned off my Ipad, still crying, took a deep breath and started to cry harder than before. I'm looking forward to reading more by Colleen Oakley!
A heart-wrenching debut novel in the bestselling tradition of P.S. I Love You about a young woman with breast cancer who undertakes a mission to find a new wife for her husband before she passes away. Twenty-seven-year-old Daisy already beat breast cancer three years ago. How can this be happening to her again? On the eve of what was supposed to be a triumphant “Cancerversary” with her husband Jack to celebrate three years of being cancer-free, Daisy suffers a devastating blow: her doctor tells her that the cancer is back, but this time it’s an aggressive stage four diagnosis. She may have as few as four months left to live. Death is a frightening prospect—but not because she’s afraid for herself. She’s terrified of what will happen to her brilliant but otherwise charmingly helpless husband when she’s no longer there to take care of him. It’s this fear that keeps her up at night, until she stumbles on the solution: she has to find him another wife. With a singular determination, Daisy scouts local parks and coffee shops and online dating sites looking for Jack’s perfect match. But the further she gets on her quest, the more she questions the sanity of her plan. As the thought of her husband with another woman becomes all too real, Daisy’s forced to decide what’s more important in the short amount of time she has left: her husband’s happiness—or her own?
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