Review : By The Time You Read This I'll Be Dead

By The Time You Read This I’ll Be Dead

By: Julie Anne Peters

Synopsis:

After a lifetime of being bullied, Daelyn is broken beyond repair. She has tried to kill herself before, and is determined to get it right this time. Though her parents think they can protect her, she finds a Web site for "completers" that seems made just for her. She blogs on its forums, purging her harrowing history. At her private Catholic school, the only person who interacts with her is a boy named Santana. No matter how poorly she treats him, he just won't leave her alone. And it's too late for Daelyn to be letting people into her life . . . isn't it?

In this harrowing, compelling novel, Julie Anne Peters shines a light on what might make a teenager want to kill herself, as well as how she might start to bring herself back from the edge. A discussion guide and resource list prepared by "bullycide" expert C. J. Bott are included in the back matter.

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Review: 

I’ve read and own a few of Julie Anne Peters’ books from when I was about 14 years old. They were really good and even at that young age, helped me see a different point of view and perspective.

Julie writes about taboo situations and things in life that people know about, but keep very hush hush. Things like finding out you’re gay, or feeling like a girl trapped in a boy’s body.

I rediscovered Julie Anne Peters when I was scanning all of my books on my bookshelf into that new Libib app. It logs all your books and all that. Pretty cool, but that’s a different subject.

While scanning my books I stumbled across a few old favorites by Julie and I was happily transported back to when I first read them and all the eye-opening feelings I didn’t know I could feel at that young age.

So of course, I looked up what else she had written so I could relive that feeling and open a new door within myself. I looked on Amazon and found By The Time You Read This I’ll Be Dead.

Sounds rough, right? Like, POW! That Title makes a huge statement right there. Others would be turned off by it, but I felt like it was just the kick to the soul I was looking for… and I was right.

By The Time was just as much an eye opener as the others I’ve read.

By The Time Is Only $6 In Paperback

Daelyn… broken, bullied, nothing left to live for.

I am so amazed at what she went through and how she could be as strong as she was. Yes, we’ve all read the newest “bullying” book. Myself included. But this one was different. While other books on bullying talk about how something small can have the snowball effect and cause someone’s death, Daelyn pretty much struggled from day one. That’s right, I mean birth. She struggled with her feelings for so long that by age 10 she already was planning her demise. After that… jeez. The horrors she went through. Being picked on for her weight, her parents not listening, being blamed by all the adults in her life for her being bullied. Why was it her fault that she got beat down so much? Why would an adult, let alone her parents, blame her? Ugh, it broke my heart.

I had a lot of tear jerker moments while reading this book.

**Let’s segue really quick to a side note of bullying nowadays. My opinion. You don’t have to agree, but here I go.

I think the term “bullying” is thrown around so loosely nowadays. Now it’s like, if a child (or adult) comes home and says that someone said they stink. THAT’S them being bullied. I understand that small things can snowball and that we never know the entire story… but come on. You can’t tell me that when you were a kid you didn’t pick at someone because they wore the same shirt twice, or that they had acne. Everyone is guilty. So, I guess EVERYONE is a bully.

Read this book… this was TRUE bullying. And Daelyn was the strongest trooper I’ve ever seen. Even if she didn’t think it her entire life. The saddest thing is that every event that she was forced to have occur, happens in real life. It’s absolute horror.**

But then Daelyn meets a boy. A boy she doesn’t want to meet. She has no desire to make friends, but BOOM, he’s there and he won’t go away. He’s like a nat. You swipe and you think it’s gone but there it goes again, slowly flying past your eyeline. That’s what Santana was for Daelyn. An annoying nat.

Santana… He’s too nice, always waits for her after school, weird but cute, there’s gotta be some trick she’s not seeing yet.

 Sure, he’s got his quirks. He did kinda randomly choose this sad looking girl to start talking to. And it’s not like he really even started slow. He dove in like he’d known Daelyn forever. Was never deterred when Daelyn didn’t talk back to him… like, ever. And did I mention, he has a pet rat. So um, YUCK.

But, he’s super cool! I really like a kid who can see someone who is clearly an outcast and not even give a damn.

I’m not going to dive too much into all the details of this book for many reasons. It would crush you to hear everything at once, there’s too much for me to even begin, and then of course where’s the fun in that?! If I tell you everything, there won’t be any reason for you to read it yourself.

Julie Anne Peters is currently happily retired. I did ask her if she wanted to do an author spotlight so we can peek into her brilliant mind, but she respectfully declined. So, you’ll have to just check out her books to lift the curtain. Which I think is good enough!  

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Author Bio:

For the last 20+ years, I've been writing books for young readers. My YA novel, Luna, the story of a transgender teen beginning her transition from male to female, was a National Book Award finalist and an American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults. (Thank you award committee members.) My other books about gender queer youth include Keeping You a Secret, Far from Xanadu (retitled, Pretend You Love Me), Between Mom and Jo, grl2grl: short fictions, Rage: A Love Story, She Loves You, She Loves You Not..., It's Our Prom (So Deal With It), and my newest book scheduled for 2014, The Double Life of Swanee Durbin. Also check out my book about bullycide, By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead.

I'm a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, PEN America, the Authors Guild, and the Colorado Authors' League. I live with my partner, Sherri Leggett, in Lakewood, Colorado. (We're celebrating our 38th anniversary this year.

More information about me and my books can be found on my Web site: www.JulieAnnePeters.com

  

-Courtney Moctezuma