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

Publisher: Hyperion Books
Date: January 2010
Page Count: 200
Reading Level: Ages 13-17

BOOK DESCRIPTION: 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?

MY REVIEW: This book shows what can happens when the cruelty of others takes the recipient over the edge. Most of us have experienced some form of meanness in childhood. BY THE TIME is Daelyn's story of how the effects of the constant picking on, name calling, and bullying by classmates gets buried inside her mind, inside her psyche, and is embedded into her skin she no longer wants to be alive. She believes taking her own life is the only way to stop the pain.

"I'm scared, okay? I've always been scared. Every day of my life I wake up terrified. I wonder who will make it their mission to hunt me down today. I can't WAIT to be rid of that feeling." (Page 163)

As the story begins Daelyn has already attempted suicide two times before, once by slitting her wrist and the other by drinking a noxious concoction which damages her trachea and voice. She wears a neck brace and cannot speak while her voice heals. Her parents have had to move frequently and she has switched schools, so each time she has to suffer doubly--both as the new girl and as the mute freak with a brace.

"Why did you give birth to such a loser? Why didn't you admit I was hopeless and fat and stop trying to make me fit in? This world wasn't meant for me. I was born too soon, or too late. Too defective." (Page 67)

Daelyn now attends a parochial high school and has to be picked up by one of her parents. She is kept under their watch and her computer usage is overseen by her father. They attend therapy sessions together and try to act normally. Daelyn only wants to succeed with her next attempt. When we meet her, she is consumed with planning her final suicide to the extent she finds a website where she gets information on the various ways and vents on the discussion boards. Over the chapters (which are broken down into the number of her remaining days before her 'death') we see the extent of the bullying she endured, how truly vicious some of it was. Her summer at fat camp was horrendous (and was criminally abusive) and she was also sexually attacked by three boys in middle school, something she kept quiet from everyone.

While she waits for her ride home a strange boy begins to sit by her on the bench she frequents. At first she tries to keep her distance, but he is persistent. His name is Santana and he is home schooled. Over time he attempts to penetrate the wall she has built around herself, and to her surprise Daelyn begins to crack and feel again. By letting this boy in, she is able to reach out to her parents, revisits her past, and ultimately she has to decide whether taking her life is the right choice to make.

Interestingly I didn't want to like this story, but I did. Daelyn is a sympathetic and realistic character. Peters does an excellent job of conveying Daelyn's emotions and mental state without becoming melodramatic. Teen suicide and bullying are two important subjects which have received national attention. This book helps shed some light on what one victim endured and her reaction to all of it. Daelyn may be fictional but she is symbolic of what so many of us were like and experienced as youths.

One of my favorite books last year was Julia Hoban's WILLOW, which centered around a teen cutting herself after tragically losing her parents (I still don't care for the relationship part of that story). BY THE TIME is just as important a read as that title. This book may be short but it is powerful and thought provoking. Recommended.

RATING: ++++

SERIES: No.

REVIEWED BY: Laurie


BOOK SOURCE: Library.