Booktalking "Somebody Up There Hates You" by Hollis Seamon

They've got spirit; they're not depressed. 17-year-old Richie and 15-year-old Sylvie think that they are in love; they have terminal cancer, and they live in hospice care. Every minute they can find, Richie and Sylvie spend together. You can see through the illness in these two young people. Teenage hormones run amuck even while death stares them in the face. 

Physical weakness plagues the both of them. In a nutrition-less state, every movement takes gargantuan effort. Taking a shower is a chore; luckily Richie has Edward the super-nurse to sponge-bathe him. Eating is not required by hospice patients, so Richie goes without.

The lack of privacy in hospice care is hard for teenagers to take. Anyone can enter their rooms at any time; there is a window in each of the rooms. Nurses, doctors, family members: all have free access to the sick party at any time of day or night. All of this would be dealt with by a normal teenager with "Keep Out!" signs on his or her bedroom door. Things are different in hospice.

Anytime anyone asks what is wrong with Richie, why he is in hospice, he replies that he has SUTHY Syndrome: Somebody Up There Hates You Syndrome.

Somebody Up There Hates You by Hollis Seamon, 2013

Overall the book provides a poignant, nondepressing look into the worlds of the terminal ill. However, I am not a fan of the cursing language or the explicit sex in the book. It really showed how the life of teens in hospice have not yet been snuffed out; they are still playful, mischievous, and full of raging hormones.