By The Time You Read This, I’ll Be Dead by Julie Anne Peters

Book: By The Time You Read This, I’ll Be Dead by Julie Anne Peters

Release date: January 5, 2010

Publisher: Hyperion Book

From: Publisher

Summary:
Daelyn Rice is broken beyond repair, and after a string of botched suicide attempts, she’s determined to get her death right. She starts visiting a website for “completers”- www.through-the-light.com.

While she’s on the site, Daelyn blogs about her life, uncovering a history of bullying that goes back to kindergarten. When she’s not on the Web, Daelyn’s at her private school, where she’s known as the freak who doesn’t talk.

Then, a boy named Santana begins to sit with her after school while she’s waiting to for her parents to pick her up. Even though she’s made it clear that she wants to be left alone, Santana won’t give up. And it’s too late for Daelyn to be letting people into her life. Isn’t it?

*****

I knew going into this that it was going to be a sad book but I had no clue it would be so depressing. I just can’t get past how saw the book was and how honest it was. I think that’s the real hard part.

Daelyn Rice feels that she has no reason to live. She has no friends, no confidence, nothing left to live for. When she finds throughthelight.com it just helps solidify her plan. All the people on the site are like her and she can finally tell someone about everything that has happened to her. She knows that once she gets everything out she will finally be ready to end her life. Then Santana comes along and changes everything.

I liked Santana way more than Daelyn. He so clearly loved life and had no problems with the fact that Daelyn wasn’t a normal girl. He accepted her the way she was. Daelyn, on the other hand, didn’t care about living. I hate to say it but she was kind of pitiful. She gave up. She even admits that she never bothered trying to defend herself. I know that she was bullied by everyone but she could have changed that if she tried.

By The Time You Read This, I’ll Be Dead is depressing in it’s honesty. Everything mentioned in those pages happens regularly. Bullying does lead to kids taking their own lives and sometimes all it takes is one person to stop them, one friend.

Overall, By The Time You Read This, I’ll Be Dead was a good book but I can’t get past Daelyn’s weakness and the end of the book. Now don’t think that because I say that I give away the ending because you will really never guess how it ends until you read it. I guess it just shocked me so much and I can’t get past it. So yes if this looks like something you might like, give it a shot!

Writing: 9/10

Characters: 7/10

Plot: 8/10

Ending: 7/10

Originality: 9/10

Overall: 40/50=B-

Cover: 9/10=A-

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10 comments

  1. i actually read the book… and i LOVED it!! but the ending got me confused… because at first i thought she stuck to her original “to become a completer” idea…. but now im wondering… if she had dinner with Santana and went to her cousins house over summer break. What do you think actually happend? did she become a completer? or stay a failure?

  2. I just finished reading the book and I am totally confused. Did she got o the party or did she mean going into the light as in dieing? The last page was a totally–I wouldn’t say cliff hanger– but it really left me hanging.