Chemo, radiation, a zillion surgeries, watching your mom age twenty years in twenty months: if that’s part of the Big Dude’s plan, then it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? Somebody Up There Hates You.

Smart-mouthed, funny, and sometimes crude, Richard Casey is in most ways a typical seventeen-year-old boy. Except Ritchie has cancer, and he’s spending his final days in a hospice unit. His mother, his doctors, and the hospice staff are determined to keep Ritchie alive as long as possible. But in this place where people go to die, Richie has plans to make the most of the life he has left.

Fifteen-year-old Sylvie, the only other hospice inmate under sixty, has plans of her own. What begins as camaraderie soon blossoms into love, and the star-crossed pair determine together to live life on their own terms in whatever time they have.

Hollis Season has created one of the most original voices in young adult literature, narrating a story that is unflinching, graphic, heart-breaking, funny, and above all, life-affirming.

Hollis Seamon