Admission to the Feast by Gunnel Beckman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
death is only the bramble
round pellucid blooms
the dark jewel
that offers admission to the feast
This is another in the flurry of lost-love-books I’ve hunted down to reread. I read this back in high school, possibly even junior high, and it stayed with me. I hunted down a used copy to see if it’s still as powerful, and it is. Annika takes a few days to hide from her friends and family after finding out she is dying, telling her story in a letter to a friend, trying to get a grasp before “it wasn’t only my own despair, but theirs too.”
99 Monkeys 