A Journey To Save Yourself

A Journey To Save Yourself

“I am not a thin person however, this does not give people the right to make fun of me everyday. This does not give people the right to taunt me, calling me ugly and worthless, telling me to kill myself because no one will ever want me, or to make up songs about why I am so fat and how much food I eat. No one. I repeat, no one has the right to hurt another human being this badly.” (p.17) Daelyn feels connected to this person like they are looking right into her soul.Some teens may also feel the same way if they are being bullied and read this book. In By The Time You Read This, I’ll Be Dead by Julie Anne Peters, the main character, Daelyn is bullied for being fat so she tries to kill herself. She fails so she decides to plan her suicide so carefully and precisely that this time there will be no room for error. This is a book for teens who are going through depression and for teens who feel lost or alone in this world and just need a way to escape for a while.

This book is for teens who are depressed or suicidal because they will realize that they can do something to change themselves. That they are able to help themselves if they feel no one else will. In the book Daelyn says, “ ‘I knew right then and there nothing was ever going to change. It wouldn’t matter if I was tall or short or fat or thin or absent everyday. I was a loser from birth’ ”(p.122) This is how Daelyn feels throughout the entire story up until the last seventeen pages of the book. She felt like a loser and then something clicked in her mind. She started to realize slowly that there were people around her that really cared about her. People that didn’t care about her size and liked her for who she was. She started to see that she was the problem and that if she just started over and stopped always feeling sorry for herself, some of the people close to her in her life would stop treating her like she was a wounded or damaged person who couldn’t do anything for herself.

This is an admirable book for teens who don’t feel heard because they will learn that they just have to stay calm and know that everything is going to work itself out in the end. In the book Daelyn felt like she wasn’t being heard by her parents. She thought they didn’t care what she had to say anymore. She felt abandoned and ignored. Tennagers can relate to this because they aren’t always being heard. Parents don’t always listen to what their children have to say or believe them. It took Daelyn a long time to apprehend that her parents were listening to her but they were also doing what was best for her. This book can help teenagers understand that they just need to be patient and understand that their parents have their best interest at heart.

This is a book for teens who feel they have too many tormentors because they will realize the answer isn’t to get rid of yourself. Don’t take yourself out of the equation and let the tormentors win. You need to fight for yourself, believe in yourself. A quote from the book states, “J_Doe050881 writes: You try to take on the tormentors. But there are always more where they came from.” Daelyn felt the solution to this was to “take out the tormented”. I feel you would have to read the whole book for you not to take it out of context. This seem like it may not be appropriate for a YA book but I don’t feel this one line is going to make someone kill themselves especially if they read the entire book. The book as a whole might actually make someone change their mind and decide not to commit suicide. This is an inspirational book.

In conclusion, this phenomenal book is great for different people. People can relate to the character and the story in many ways and it keeps you wondering until the end.