So Much To Live For takes place in Columbus, the capital of Ohio. It is in
modern times. Half of this book takes place at a cancer camp an hour out of
Columbus, Ohio. The cancer camp is a summer camp, so the weather is mostly sunny
and warm. They also have occasional showers. Dawn Rochelle is the main character
in So Much To Live For. She is 16 and has had a very tough life. She is still in
remission after having leukemia, cancer of the blood. She is a very strong
person and loves giving a helping hand whenever possible. She has a positive
attitude toward life because she knows how precious it is. She works at an ice
cream place with her best friend. She also works as a CIT at a cancer camp, that
she once attended. Dawn has had a hard life. She fought off cancer and lost one
of her best friends to cancer. She is still in remission. Dawn knew a girl named
Sandy from cancer camp last summer. Sandy died a few weeks after and the last
day of camp was the last day Dawn saw her. Dawn is still very sad and it has
taken her awhile to get over it. She finally finds the strength to go back to
the camp this summer. When dawn arrived at the camp she remembered it very well.
She had the best time at the camp and now she was there to help other kids enjoy
themselves. She met another CIT, Brett. The became good friends and she found
out that he was Sandy’s brother She was so happy that she had a connection to
Sandy at last. He told her a lot of things about Sandy and how she loved Dawn so
much. Dawn got very sad but she was happy she finally knew. When she met her
group, for camp, she was very pleased with the girls and liked them a lot. She
had a group of nice, sweet girls. Marley was the oldest and Dawn couldn’t wait
to meet her. When she gathered her group she noticed that Marley was missing.
When they entered the cabin Marley had thrown Dawn’s things everywhere and was
sitting there telling Dawn how she didn’t want to be there. Dawn knew she had
her work cut out for her. Dawn tried to help her, but Marley refused to accept
it. She tried to make everyone’s stay at camp miserable. Dawn looked in
Marley’s records and found out that her eye was fake,due to cancer, and her
parents were both dead. She lived with her rich grandmother, who had a bad heart
condition. Dawn finally connected with Marley and they became friends. Marley
told Dawn she was her first friend and Dawn felt badly for her. Marley soon
softened up and became nicer to everyone. At the end of camp Dawn and Marley
were very close and promised to keep in touch. A few weeks after Dawn came home
from camp she got a phone call from Marley saying that she was very sick again.
When dawn talked to Marley’s grandmother she found out Marley would die very
soon. Dawn was devastated because this would be her second friend to lose from
cancer. A few days later Marley died. Her grandmother gave Dawn all of
Marley’s belongings, at the funeral, because she was Marley’s only friend.
Dawn had trouble dealing with this for awhile but will get over it. She sat in
the grave yard and cried, holding the bear Marley held when she died. The
message the author is trying to tell by writing this book is that life goes on
whether you choose to participate or not. Marley was so negative to everything
in life that she never seemed to notice that her life could end any minute. The
author is trying to show this by writing a book about a girl, Marley, who
doesn’t care about her life or the people in it and never seems to notice that
it is going to end. Marley spent so much time trying to make everyone else
miserable she never had time to enjoy her life. This book is told in third
person, a narrator tells the story. Three examples of this are: On page 73-
“Dawn hadn’t ment to tell them about it.” On page 5- “ ‘I think
you’ll do fine’ he told her” On page 96- “Dawn bit her tongue to avoid
saying something sharp. So Much To Live For, in my opinion, was a very good
book. I liked this book because it was suspenseful and showed ways of solving
life problems that seemed impossible. I would recommend this book to a female
classmate because it deals with mainly girls and I feel it would be
inappropriate for a boy to read it. I liked how this book delt with cancer
because I enjoy reading books that have to deal with medical issues. I disliked
how this book skipped around a lot. It went from remembering Dawn’s cancer
years, to her love life with Brett, to problems with Marley, to death. I feel
the author should have stayed more focussed.