Going in, I expected this book to be a tearjerker but it was so much more about living than dying.⁠

The lives of seventeen-year-old Lenni and eighty-three-year-old Margot come into focus through a series of flashbacks and narrations. They meet at an art therapy class in the hospital and make a pact to complete a hundred paintings, one for each year of their combined lives. Though the story centred around the unlikely friendship between the two, the other characters also added colour and humour.⁠

This book is a celebration of life, with happy, joyous moments interspersed between painful memories. While reading this, I gained a deeper appreciation of how loving someone means doing the best thing for them, even if it is hard, and that the measure of a life is not in its duration but the impact on those left behind.

by Carmen Woo