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Forever Changes
Forever Changes
Forever Changes
Ebook183 pages2 hours

Forever Changes

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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For a girl who doesn’t have much time, every infinitesimal moment counts 

Brianna is a math whiz. She’s almost certain to be admitted to MIT—that is, if she survives to see her nineteenth birthday. Brianna has cystic fibrosis, and after her friend Molly died six months ago, it’s hard for Brianna to let go of the feeling that she’s next. Numbers make sense to Brianna—they give her something to think about besides her own crummy odds. To her great surprise, it is in math class that she discovers the infinity that exists between eighteen and nineteen.
 
Poignant and true, this story of one extraordinary teenage life is riveting. With Forever Changes, Brendan Halpin has crafted an unparalleled protagonist who will leave an indelible mark on readers.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 7, 2015
ISBN9781504006415
Forever Changes
Author

Brendan Halpin

Brendan Halpin was a high school English teacher for ten years before penning his first novel. He is the author of How Ya Like Me Now and Forever Changes, as well as several novels for adults. He lives in Massachusetts. www.brendanhalpin.com

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Rating: 4.0576923076923075 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Brianna's starting her senior year of high school. She's taking AP calculus and her dad really wants her to apply to MIT. Brianna thinks she could probably get in - math has always made sense to her in a way that the real world often does not. But even though her entire class is abuzz with college talk, Brianna's not sure she wants to apply. Brianna has cystic fibrosis. She's 18 years old. She knows that she probably will not live to see her college graduation. Forever Changes is about a girl coming to terms with not only her own mortality but her own infinity. I loved this book! One of my favorite things is Brianna's great relationship with her dad. I would recommend it to fans of Before I Die by Jenny Downham. (A better review will be posted on my blog.)
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Brianna is just about to start her senior year of high school: all regular classes, plus AP Calc. But despite being a math whiz, she's not really gung-ho about applying to colleges, because she's not sure if her cystic fibrosis will allow her to even live long enough to bother. She knows her time is limited, and so she spends that time with her friends, her family, and yes, with calculus--people and ideas that make her happy. Brianna is more or less a regular teenager who goes to parties, helps her friends through boyfriend troubles and parents' divorces, and just happens to have a terminal illness. Her mortality is never far from her mind, but CF isn't her defining characteristic. She bonds with her calculus teacher (who is himself staring an early death in the face due to heart disease) as they discuss life, living, and the importance of infinitely small numbers--and people.

    The writing is a little clunky in places, though: the line "Even the fact that guys were buzzing around Melissa like bees did to that honeysuckle bush near the beach in the summer didn't bother Brianna" was a particular delight to parse. On the whole, though, I liked this better than I'd expected to. It's not maudlin the way Lurlene McDaniel books are; Brianna is very relatable as a character. The novel does require some suspension of disbelief, particularly in that Brianna is not the only student with CF at her high school, but her friend Ashley has it, too. It is a tearjerker, of course, as we head toward the inevitable conclusion, but really this is about Brianna's relationships with the people around her.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I'm wondering as to how I've never heard of or stumbled upon this book before! This book was GREAT. The writing was beautiful.As a person who isn't a fan of mathematics, this book certainly amazed me.Those complicated equations where the answer might be zero, but it isn't- an almost zero amount! Those answers can bring so much hope to a person. Briana has cystic fibrosis and chances are she won't live long. When she starts her senior year, she finds herself seeking some kind of hope and she finds it through the lessons from her calculus teacher. I love this quote from the book: "But here, Ms. Pelletier, is the thing. Without infinitesimals, the calculus as we know and love it simply wouldn't exist. It is these nearly-zero, sort-of-zero, sometimes-zero quantities that allow us to understand the world. Something which seems to be nearly nothing turns out to be crucial to everything. So though I, or for you that matter, or any of us, may be, as a collection of atoms, practically indistinguishable from zero, this does not necessarily mean we are insignificant. Indeed, it may be that we are actually crucially important." I would say that this is a must read. It's short but definitely meaningful.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    High school senior Brianna Pelletier seems to have it all: she’s smart and popular. There’s one problem though. One huge problem. She has cystic fibrosis and knows that she only has a limited amount of time left to live. Brianna goes into her senior year with an ever increasing fear of death on her mind and a frustration with the heavy emphasis on getting into college, thinking that it is pointless to apply to college with the knowledge that she might not live long to get even a high school diploma.However, what Brianna finds in school is a somewhat unorthodox math teacher who opens her mind up to ideas she never considered before and teaches her a number of life lessons along the way. His lesson on infinitesimals, numbers so small that they are seemingly meaningless but are in fact the basis for calculus, causes Brianna to start thinking that her life, however short it may end up being, is more significant than she realizes.The author does an excellent job of getting into the world of high school students (complete with modern-day pop culture reference) and of painting a touching portrait of the relationship between a single dad and his only daughter. The author also successfully explores a number of deep themes, such as the meaning of life and what happens after death, without being overly moralizing.The flowing dialogic writing and the relatively short length might suggest that this book is appropriate for tweens. However, the foul language peppered throughout along with the heavy life-and-death theme make it better suited for older teens. While math is a huge factor in this book as Brianna’s brain automatically turns even the most everyday situations into a math problem, it is not necessary to be mathematically inclined to enjoy this book.

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Forever Changes - Brendan Halpin

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