The best books that go beyond the diagnosis: how relationships are affected by cancer

Can I please give this book an extra star? I cried, I laughed, and wow, did I smile while reading Henry’s Sisters.

Henry is a special needs person, glue of the family, and the youngest child. The sisters are a famous photographer and professional one-night stander, Isabelle, her angry, food addicted, kindergarten teaching twin, Cecilia, and Janie, an OCD best-selling crime novelist who invents twisted ways to kill her characters. The cast is rounded out by stripper mom, and Amelia Earhart (grandma has dementia).

Rife for disaster with sharp wit and heartache, the family is busy navigating their tortuous past when Henry is diagnosed with terminal cancer. The dialogue shifts leaving the reader begging for Henry to live and applauding his choice to die. This book is how cancer affects a family.

Ms. Locke traverses the myriad of emotions dealing with grief following the loss of her husband to cancer in this non-fiction book. Ms. Locke, a budding actress, takes the reader along with her and her young daughter as she travels back to Sicily, her husband’s birthplace, to spend time with and learn from his family.

From Scratch is about beginnings, life after cancer, life after loss, life all over again. Ms. Locke tells a wonderful story that will captivate the reader while allowing them to feel her pain and anguish. Ms. Locke easily expresses herself as a wife, a mother, and an unaccepted daughter-in-law during her husband’s illness. She is honest and forthright–no one gets a pass. Ms. Locke flawlessly depicts the ravages of cancer. From Scratch is well-worth the read.

In full disclosure, I don’t normally pick up mid-20-year-old protagonist books; I’m in my 50’s. I don’t normally relate. In this case, however, I related. It was a good book, solid, entertaining and recommendable.

And here’s where it gets weird – not the book, the fact that the author wrote my life, sort of. When the young protagonist finds her friend dying from cancer, she cracks, and the emotions, thoughts, experiences are so relatable; hauntingly so, I felt as if she were a friend of mine going through my cancer story. This book takes a time travel twist, but don’t let it throw you, it’s worth the read.

What a wonderful, moral-rich, non-preachy, feel-good, tapped several of the big societal issues (adultery, death, divorce, pride, bullying, regret, work vs. family; you get the point), without ever once making me squirm with too many religious overtones, or want to run off to confess my improprieties. As a flower child at heart, I loved the continual nuances of people and growth compared to good soil and water, seasons, and blooms. This book was beautifully done.

When the matriarch of a loving family is diagnosed with cancer and determined to live out her days without treatment, there are twists and turns of reality that make this book a must-read. I too, nearly chose the path of non-treatment and this book resonates.

Well done, Julie Cantrell!

A timeless, iconic story of teens Hazel and Augustus, both fighting cancers. The book is a devastatingly real depiction of anyone diagnosed who has yet to fulfill their dreams; especially, youngsters. The tone is raw and honest, hard-hitting, and clever. The reality hits the survivor’s guilt chord head-on when the one who wasn’t supposed to succumb first, does. Anyone who has been diagnosed will know this feeling when they ‘outlive’ one of their co-fighters.

Hazel and Augustus easily show the world by their innocent ideals, how difficult, mature, and brave a person must be to stand by a terminally ill loved one. Read this book, you will not regret it and it will change you. And, your cancer-afflicted friends and family will thank you.