Word Out 2014

Esther Grace Earl was only twelve years old when she was diagnosed with
metastatic papillary thyroid cancer in France, where she was staying with her
large family of seven. Her type of cancer is usually easily treatable, with an
up to 90% survival rate, but Esther’s cancer had spread to her lungs and
therefore needed more treatment and attention. They ended up all moving
permanently to America, where she received heavy treatment and lots and lots of medication. She was fine until 2008, when her cancer began to take a turn for the worse. She died August 25th, 2010, shortly after her 16th birthday.

This book is Esther’s story, told mostly through her diary and blog entries, with notes from her paren'ts, Lori and Wayne Earl; her friends from Catitude, a Skype chatting group dedicated to upholding effyeahnerdfighters (nerdfighters were invented by John and Hank Green and are what they call people who fight for nerds and intellectualism), the largest nerdfighter web base; her siblings; one of her doctors; and her other friends. There’s an introduction to this book from John Green, in which he talks about how he met Esther and how she changed her life (he also dedicated The Fault in our Stars to her.).

This Star Won’t Go Out is amazing. Esther stays strong and cheerful, always optimistic even when death is looming over her. She’s very artistic; her drawings and writing are included in this book. She’s very straightforward about her cancer, and about her life with cancer. The book also gets very heart-wrenching and sad, especially towards the end, as Esther gets closer to her death.

I really, really liked this book, but I did have a problem with it: the pictures of Esther didn’t line up with the events in the book. You could have a diary entry from 2008 and have photos from 2010.This got a little confusing at times, especially when there were a couple of pictures a few pages from each other from different years, one with her hair short and bright orange, and the other with her when her hair was longer.

WARNING: Esther uses a bit of strong language in one of her diary entries, and is sometimes very, very straightforward with things like boyfriends, her fights with her siblings, and death. If any of these things make you uncomfortable, don’t read the book.

(with special thanks to our reviewer J.C.)