So Much To Live For Essay, Research Paper
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.
McDaniel, Lurlene. So Much To Live For. .19 :1