No Time To Cry – A Part Of Oneself

With that, I have completed Dawn Rochelle’s journey at the final volume of this series (apparently, I think there’s one more but I’m assuming this was meant to be the last). After Marlee’s passing, we’re back to focusing on Dawn herself more.

She and Rhonda have started at a new high school as sophomores and I wonder what happened to the other friends the former had: Jill and Kim for instance? In the second book it was only Rhonda she was hanging out with and I didn’t like her because she was the most boy-crazy character ever, only dressing up to impress guys. Girl, dress up for yourself, never do it for someone else!

As Dawn seems to move forward with her life other than the maintenance, she and Rhonda hope to get their driver’s licenses once they turn sixteen and their high school offers a driver’s ed course. This must be a US thing because here in Canada, when I was going to high school, there was no driver’s ed offered. I wasn’t ready to get my license when I turned sixteen but still.

Dawn’s long-time crush Jake has reentered her life and Dawn is struggling to find some normalcy as well but there are things that constantly bring her back to the times when she was sick. Like when the nurse Katie offers her to join a support program and the hospital plans to open a new cancer clinic that Marlee’s grandmother funded before her death. But Dawn keeps running away from it all now that she feels like things are finally going right for her.

Towards the end, it felt a little anti-climactic when she got pneumonia, I thought it was a rejection of the marrow after all this time and Dawn is so anxious about a bunch of things like will she still be able to have children, etc. I’m glad Dr. Ben gave her a little pep talk about how she’s a survivor, that this is part of her identity, and what made him decide to become a doctor and that pushes her to live to fight another day.

I don’t agree with her putting her old bear in the time capsule because I could never give up my oldest teddy, but hey she and Jake made up and got together so that’s good right? There’s no telling what the future holds from her now, like will she remain cancer-free? One can hope.

This series was good, albeit not perfect but it makes me wish I did read all of it when I was younger.