Perseverance: True Voices of Cancer Survivors: 11/09/09

Perseverance: True Voices of Cancer Survivors by Carolyn Rubenstein is a collection of twenty interviews with survivors of childhood cancers.

Cancer is one of those perverse diseases that is harder on you the younger you are. It thrives in the presence of the growth hormones that young bodies are so full of. Blood Matters by Masha Gessen has a long discussion of this phenomena

Perseverance though isn't about the various diseases that all go under the "cancer" heading nor is it so much about the treatments for them. Instead it's about how having the disease chanced daily routines and created new senses of normal for these twenty patients, their family and friends

The collection of interviews are presented in a style similar to the Chicken Soup... books. Although cancer is often deadly and probably always scary the tone of the book remains upbeat. I recommend reading only an essay or two at a time and letting each one sink in before moving on

Perseverance happens to be a charity book. All proceeds from the book go to CCC and Chordoma Foundation

I received a copy unsolicited and have since released it through BookCrossing.

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