The award-winning YA novel By The Time You Read This I’ll Be Dead by Julie Anne Peters is a fantastic book and for me personally almost a bit scary. The reason for this is that from the age of thirteen to sixteen, I was Daelyn, the protagonist of the novel.
Julie Anne Peters has won so many awards for her novels and garnered such respect as a young adult novelist because her works do not speak down to young people and create a diversity representative of the real world. Her novel Luna in the early noughties was the first novel for young people to feature a transgender person and in this book she looks at the manner in which so many teenagers today have to endure horrific bullying which can sometimes led to suicide.
Daelyn has attempted suicide multiple times ,as she tells us, calling them failures instead of attempts. She starts the novel convinced that if she keeps living then only despair awaits her and due to a botched throat cutting struggles to speak or eat properly. On suicide watch she quietly finds a website which promises to help her commit to finally succeeding in her quest to end her life.
Like Daelyn I was slightly overweight at high school so I was bullied badly. I developed an eating disorder and slowly started self harming before becoming suicidal. I attempted about twice and planned to finally do it at a bridge in our nearby nature trail. I remember than feeling of peace in knowing that I was going to finally end it without people knowing before it was too late and Like Daelyn I also spent time in hospital.
The novel charts the twenty three days until the date to kill herself that Daelyn has been provided by the website called through-the-light. In this time span she meets a teenage boy called Santana who has cancer and tries to help her see life is worth living. He approaches her in an understanding way unlike the countless adults and people who have reacted to her in the past.
The book ends with an open-ended conclusion leaving the reader to decide what happens.
Peters’ book is a fantastic novel which aptly highlights the isolation that depression causes for young people and how increasingly younger people are being driven to contemplate ending their lives before its fully began.
I think it’s a book that should be taught in schools as it might reach children that feel like Daelyn or myself at that age.In my case I did recover and I am happy I did not go through with any plans I had. Peters’ skill as a writer means that many other children and teens in the same situation will likely be the same.
