Forever Changes
by Brendan Halpin

    FOREVER CHANGES by Brendan Halpin
    Category:  Contemporary
    Age Recommendation:  Grades 9+
    Release Date:  9/2/08
    Publisher:  Farrar, Straus and Giroux
    Reviewed by:  Jaglvr
    Rating:  5 Stars


    Brianna Pelletier was born with a death sentence.  Her DNA gave her Cystic Fibrosis. The only unknown for
    Brianna is how long she will have.

    It’s Brianna’s senior year and while her friends are planning for college, Brianna’s plans are far simpler:  live to see
    graduation.  She never intended to go to college.  She never believed she’d survive this long.  But things are going
    pretty good.  She’s managed to avoid any serious infections and remain out of the hospital.  She fears that if she
    needs to return to the hospital, she’ll never leave.  Well, she’d never leave alive.

    So as senior year progress, she gains insight into what it means to really live, by an unlikely source – her ailing math
    teacher.  Her alphabetically placed study buddy, Adam, hears a rumor that Mr. Eccles was in a band, Love, in the
    past.  Downloading the music, Adam shares the bizarre album, Forever Changes, with Brianna.  The music reaches
    a part of her that she could never put into words.  After hearing the music, and then encountering Mr. Eccles one
    evening on a deserted beach, the two form an understanding with each other.

    Through Brianna’s dad’s gentle love, the nerdy pressure from Adam, and the desire to live courtesy of Mr. Eccles,
    Brianna takes living to the next step – she attends an information session at MIT and takes the scariest step of her
    life, sending in her application.  This action could bring hope or despair.  On one level, she fears that by sending it in,
    she is hexing herself that she will never live to see her admission to MIT.  But on another level, she doesn’t want to
    die and wants some ray of hope, something to live for.

    In Brianna, Mr. Halpin shares with readers both a wish to live and a desire to not die, which really are not one and
    the same.  Brianna does her best with the hand she’s been dealt.  More than anything, she dreams of being like
    everyone else without a care in the world, but she has greater obstacles to overcome.  She does so bravely and
    without blame.  She’s an inspiring character to curl up and share a few hours with.