With humor, skill, and deep empathy, Robinson tells the story of Tessa, a 28-year-old, terminally ill woman who wants to end her life with dignity in a world that fights this choice. Tessa makes a good case for leaving this planet while she is still “herself,” and not a person “trapped in my own body.” Right away, the author grabs your heart, freezes it, and makes you gasp. She lets her main character inform you that she is going to die soon and will never have the baby she longs for. But Tessa gets in a joke or two in before dropping the bad news. That’s just Tessa—a madly-in-love married woman with a devoted husband, father, and sister who uses humor (and sex!) to get through what’s left of her life.

Robinson so skillfully breathes life into Tessa that you forget this is a novel; it reads like a memoir. The story rollercoasters through hope and fear until, “Now the only thing actually in my control—my own body—has been stolen from me.” Tessa then makes her final decision.

Readers will learn much about the bizarre world of legally assisted suicide and the turmoil it wreaks on the patient’s family and within the medical community. Patients must uproot their lives at a critical time to establish residency in a state that allows euthanasia. Even in states that recognize the Death with Dignity Act, physicians can refuse the patient, and pharmacists can deny the death pills. Robinson has written a guide to the perils of assisted suicide and certainly gives wonderful examples, through Tessa, of how to make someone’s final weeks happy, purposeful, and loving. For all those who will one day die, this is a book to read now.

RECOMMENDED by the US Review

Return to USR Home