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    Side Effects
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    Side Effects
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    Side Effects
    Ebook194 pages2 hours

    Side Effects

    By Amy Goldman Koss

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Serious, funny, compelling -- and unique: a novel about a teenager with cancer and doesn't die, from Amy Goldman Koss, acclaimed author of THE GIRLS.

    As if it isn't bad enough to have cancer, practically every time we pick up a book or hear about a character in a movie who gets sick, we know they'll be dead by the last scene. In reality, kids get all kinds of cancers, go through unspeakable torture and painful treatments, but walk away, fine in the end.

    Isabelle, not quite 15, is living a normal life of fighting with her younger brother, being disgusted with her parents, and hoping to be noticed by a cute guy. Everything changes in an instant when she is diagnosed with lymphoma-- and even her best friend, Kay, thinks Izzy is going to die. But she doesn't, and her humor—sardonic, sharp, astute -- makes reading this book accessible and actually enjoyable.

    From the acclaimed author of The Girls and Poison Ivy, Side Effects is about the pain, fear, and unlikely comedy of 15-year-old Izzy's journey, told in her own powerful and authentic voice. It is Izzy's story—screams and all.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateJan 25, 2010
    ISBN9781429935821
    Unavailable
    Side Effects
    Author

    Amy Goldman Koss

    Amy Goldman Koss is the author of several highly praised teen novels including Poison Ivy, Side Effects, and The Girls, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, an ALA Quick Picks Top Ten selection, and an IRA Young Adult Choice. She lives in Glendale, CA.

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    Reviews for Side Effects

    3.5/5

    70 ratings10 reviews

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    • 3/5
      a good book
    • 4/5
      A wonderful realistic story of 15-year-old Izzy who is diagnosed with lymphoma. She's wonderfully sardonic as she deals with her family, especially mom, and her friends reactions to her illness. Despite the gritty reality of the treatments and hair loss the humor keeps you reading and hopeful.
    • 4/5
      Even though she’s feeling great, her swollen glands force twelve year old Isabelle to visit her doctor who immediately sends to her Children’s Hospital for CAT scans and biopsies. It turns out that she’s got lymphoma, requiring a hospital stay and eight rounds of chemotherapy. Her hospital stay will be short, just for her first round of chemo, and then she’ll get them on an outpatient basis. Her hospital roommate is Carrie, who has sickle cell and comes to the hospital only when it flares up. Carrie shows Isabelle the hospital ropes and introduces her to some of the kids who are there for sickle cell, leukemia, lymphoma and other diseases.Side Effects by Amy Goldman Koss, author of The Girls and Poison Ivy, takes readers through the last six months of Isabelle’s eighth grade year, detailing the chemo regimen and the side effects (nausea, hair loss, etc.). Readers live her life, reacting to her treatments, understanding her desire to sleep and skip school and be a lazy slug. More telling are the ways Isabelle and her family, friends and classmates react. Izzy tries to be her normal self, being as strong as she can be, cracking jokes. Her mother cries 24/7. He father quotes remission statistics success rates. Her Aunt Lucy is the only logical one, trying to treat Izzy the same as always. Her friend Kay is always by her side. However, some of her classmates are less understanding, creating a vulgar video mocking people with cancer. Koss even describes the various doctors, nurses and social workers, some honest, some treating patients like babies, some indifferent.Koss’s writing is direct. She doesn’t white wash anything, yet she isn’t negative or depressing. Side Effects, despite the subject, is hopeful. Regardless of whether or not you know anyone with cancer, you can relate to Izzy. You love her for herself. You sympathize with the agony that her parents are enduring. You admire Kay. It can’t be easy watching Izzy’s hair fall out, yet Kay stands by her friend. You might think it odd that there’s a love interest in such a book, but it is there and adds to the hopeful attitude.I liked Koss’ writing from having read The Girls. I like it as much now for having tackled such a difficult subject so effectively, for having produced a novel that teens with cancer or without it can read, understand, relate to and enjoy. Yes….even enjoy.
    • 5/5
      14-year-old Izzy's life is turned upside down and inside out when she finds out she has cancer, and everyone she knows starts treating her differently--except Kay, her best friend.Side Effects is gripping, devastating, and satisfying, but not uplifting--and that's the whole point. This is not a story of triumph over adversity, and it's not a tragedy with a voiceless victim. It's a story of what happens when life hits, whether you come to terms with it or not. Izzy is a strong, fully dimensional character with an acid tongue, and Koss plunges the reader into Izzy's personal hell with no more apology than Izzy gets when a nurse sticks a needle in for the 5th time, trying to find a vein. Koss's writing takes you from lauging out loud to holding your breath to crying and back to laughing again in a matter of a few paragraphs. There is so much packed in, you won't believe it's only 143 pages when you finish it. Highly recommended for all middle and high school libraries, public library young adult sections.
    • 2/5
      I didn't really like this book. It was sort of weird and gross.
    • 4/5
      Teenager Isabella Miller is diagnosed with cancer.Funny, sarcastic, and painful. It's not too graphic, but you still get the gist of what she's going through, from the frustration at the begining when everyone talks around her and forgets to talk to her, to the horrible side effects of the chemo, to having to deal with everyone else's coping methods along with figuring out her own.It's a quick read but it's very moving and the voice rings true.
    • 3/5
      Izzy, short for Isabelle, is diagnosed with lymphoma. The next six months of her life are spent dealing with chemotherapy and battling the cancer. We are there for the first unreal moments when Izzy finds out she has cancer and starts her treatment. The first 2 months are fairly detailed, but the following four fly by in a few pages. There is an afterword from Izzy a few years after she has survived the cancer.
    • 3/5
      A startling perspective about a teenage girl who learns she has cancer. Realistic, yet written with an uplifting tone.
    • 4/5
      Imagine waking up in the morning, noticing that your glands are a little swollen – then ending up in the hospital that night after your doctor tells you that you have cancer. This is what happens to Izzy Miller in this book. What she thinks will be a simple visit to her doctor ends up sending her into a nightmare of needles, biopsies, body scans and chemotherapy when the doctors discover that she has Hodgkin’s lymphoma.In most young adult books, the characters with cancer end up dying but Izzy is different. This book takes you through Izzy’s bewilderment, pain and depression as she battles the enemy within her – and wins. The story takes place in southern California (Izzy is sent to Children’s Hospital in L.A. and visits Griffith Park, Santa Monica and Vroman’s bookstore in Pasadena in the course of the story) which makes it seem more real, since most of the locations mentioned are familiar.Although the things Izzy goes through are not pleasant to read about (or imagine happening to you) in the end this is a positive book with a happy ending. If you want to read about a teen’s struggle with a horrible situation, but don’t feel like crying at the end of the story, read Side Effects.
    • 4/5
      Izzy has cancer. But this is not one of those tear-jerky teen novels. No, Izzy is battling straight through it, even though some days she feels like maybe she'd rather quit than go through another round of chemo. I didn't find this book to be particularly strong as far as characterization goes. I felt like it was written for the purpose of writing a book about someone who has cancer, but doesn't die. It was good for what it was, but the story and characters fell short for me.