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MY PARENT HAS CANCER AND IT REALLY SUCKS by Maya Silver

MY PARENT HAS CANCER AND IT REALLY SUCKS

by Maya Silver ; Marc Silver

Pub Date: March 1st, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7307-0
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

A guide for teens who have a parent with cancer is chock-full of information and advice but sometimes misses the mark.

The authors, the husband and now-adult daughter of a woman who had cancer, include advice and personal experience from social workers, teens whose parents have or have had cancer, and adults who were teens when their parents were diagnosed. One chapter explicates common cancer terms; others offer advice for finding support, communicating with family and friends, and dealing with the loss of a parent. Although the many voices offer a variety of perspectives, the book assumes a middle-class, suburban readership: All families are assumed to have cars, and a chapter on “parentification” assumes that any teen taking on a parental role after a parent's diagnosis will be doing so for the first time. Gender-based assumptions seem more harmful than helpful (why separate the “Risky Business” chapter into stories about “Bad Boys” and “Bad Girls” when the behaviors described are all very similar?), and a few of the bits of helpful advice are downright baffling (“Don't spend [your time with a dying parent] down in the dumps. You don't want to have false hope. Hope is an important thing to have”).

There are some helpful ideas and anecdotes here, but it's not for every teen.

(Nonfiction. 12-18)