Both Sides Now by Ruth Pennebaker

From the Publisher

Liza thinks she and her mother, Rebecca, are as different as a mother and daughter can be. Liza, a successful high school junior, works hard at keeping her life under control while maintaining a positive outlook.

Rebecca, who gave up writing after her book was rejected, recently completed grueling treatment for breast cancer. When tests reveal that more painful treatments are needed, it seems to Liza that Rebecca has given up.

As the control of Liza’s once predictable life unravels, she sees her mother’s courage and strength in a whole new light. Perhaps they can share the pain of the unknown together.

Paula Rohrlick; KLIATT - KLIATT

To quote KLIATT's May 2000 review of the hardcover edition: Liza, an ambitious high school sophomore in Austin, TX, has always prided herself on her maturity and her positive outlook. But now Liza is trying desperately to hold it together while everything in her world is falling apart. Her mother, who has had breast cancer, is diagnosed with a new tumor and has to have a bilateral mastectomy; her father depends on Liza to be upbeat and supportive, not weepy like her young sister; her grandfather, come to help out, seems to be losing his mind; and she's wrecked the driver's ed car. Acting strong in the face of all she has to contend with is taking its toll, and one night Liza lets down her guard and gets drunk with her new boyfriend, frightening herself badly with her loss of control (there's no sex, though). Meanwhile, Liza's mother is tired of putting on a brave face; in italicized passages, we get her point of view as she tries to cope with her frightening diagnosis, and to communicate honestly with her family. Acting strong is not the same as being strong, Liza discovers. The emotionally difficult subject matter here may limit this novel's audience, but it's an affecting and believable story, told from Liza's point of view. Readers will get wrapped up in her struggles to cope with the changes in her life, and understand both her complex feelings about her family and her excitement over her boyfriend. A side plot deals with Liza's advice column for the school newspaper, and that's interesting too. There is some strong language here, as befits the strong emotions. A wrenching and engrossing tale. Category: Paperback Fiction. KLIATT Codes: JS—Recommended for junior and senior high schoolstudents. 2000, Random House, Laurel-Leaf, 202p.,

Product Details

• Reading Group Guide
• Read an Excerpt

Reading Group Guide

1. Rebecca and Liza have different ideas and feelings about breast cancer. Rebecca wants her family to see the changes in her personality and the ways in which she is stronger now. Liza is afraid to talk about her mother’s illness. Discuss the reasons for these different responses. How would you feel?

2. Liza feels anxious when her mother talks about cancer. Liza describes the “panic rising . . . like a siren that’s going off” and the need to stop her mother from elaborating on her fear of dying. (p. 138) Why do you think Liza resists these discussions?

3. How would you describe Liza’s reaction in the wig store? Why is she afraid to lose control of her emotions?

4. Rebecca describes Liza as “holding on too tight, trying to hold on to something that’s not there any longer.” (p. 132) How are Liza’s actions affecting her emotionally?

5. What function do the characters of Richard, Mr. Sorenson, Rory, Emma, and Beverly serve in the story? How do they represent part of Liza’s other world, outside her home life?

6. When Rebecca tells her family she does not want the stem-cell transplant, Liza realizes, “We thought we’d been protecting her for years. That’s what Dad had told me, and that’s what I’d thought. But maybe it wasn’t nearly that simple. . . . I wonder how much Mom’s protected me without my knowing it.” (p. 199) What does Liza recognize now about her mother’s strength of spirit?

7. “I feel as if I’ve been picked up and shaken and thrown back down to earth. And now I have to put things back together.” (p. 202) Whatdo you think of Rebecca’s description of her experience as a breast cancer survivor? How does this relate to Liza’s feelings?

8. How does the ending make you feel? Discuss the ways Liza and Rebecca are better equipped to talk with each other after honestly discussing breast cancer.

9. Do you know someone with breast cancer? Have you ever discussed your family history?

Read an Excerpt

It's foggy and misty this morning, but I can see the finish line the minute I turn the last corner. It's about a block away. Lots of people are standing around it, clapping and yelling. There are pink balloons everywhere, and they bob up and down in the wind.

When I cross the line, a woman in a white sweatshirt and aviator glasses gives me a big pink button that says I Raced for the Cure! I pin it on my T-shirt while I'm still jogging up and down. I look around, but I don't see Mom anywhere.

So I turn back and jog along the sidewalk, watching all the people who are still finishing the race. At first, they're all runners like me--young kids, college students, middle-aged guys with babies on their backs. But the farther back I go, the slower people are moving. After I've gone four or five blocks, you couldn't even call it a race. It's like a party that's walking very slowly. There are mostly women in long, wavy lines with their friends. They're talking and laughing and pushing strollers.

Mom and her friends are almost at the end of the crowd. She's with three women from her support group. They're all wearing pink T-shirts and visors that say I'm a breast cancer survivor!

"Liza!" Mom's waving at me. I jog over next to her and slow down to walk with her and her friends.

"You remember my older daughter, Liza?" Mom asks the other women. She pushes her hair back when she talks, the way she always has. Mom has a very pretty face, with deep blue eyes and soft skin and short, dark brown hair. Even though she doesn't like to exercise that much, she looks happy today. "Liza's a runner--when she's not doing lots of other things. She's the real achiever in the family."

Theother women and I smile at one another and nod. I've met all of them before. There's Barbara, who's short and peppy and probably the most cheerful-looking person I've ever met in my life. She almost always has lipstick on her teeth from smiling so much. Then there's Jeannette, who's taller and more serious, and Libby, who has pale skin and big brown eyes.

The three of them have very short hair, like Mom's. That's because they all had breast cancer and went through chemotherapy a few months ago.

When Mom and the other women talk about chemotherapy, they call it "chemo," for short. I think it helps to give something a nickname like that, so it doesn't sound as scary. Besides, chemo isn't as bad as most people think. It kills the cancer cells in your body and saves your life. That's what you have to keep telling yourself.

"You think we'll win the race, Liza?" Barbara asks. She winks at me, and Mom and all her friends start laughing. Right now, the five of us are walking so slowly that it's going to take a year to finish. They might have taken the finish line down and gone home by the time we get there.

About ten minutes later, we turn the final corner. The finish line is still there, with all the pink balloons flapping around. By now, it's gotten hotter, and the fog and mist have disappeared. The sun is shining, bright and golden and beautiful, and you can see the soft green hills in the distance. That's a good sign. I always look for good signs, and I almost always find them, too. It's amazing.

People are yelling when we cross the line. I think it's because we're practically the last people to finish the race. Mom and her friends hug each other, and they all hug me.

Around us, all I can see is a small crowd of women wearing pink. They move together and apart and together again, and their faces look hot and red from the sun. They're laughing and crying at the same time, in a way that's hard for me to explain. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that before.

I hug Mom again. She's laughing and crying, like the rest of the women. For a few seconds, I don't know what to say.

What should I say? The day's beautiful and we've finished the race and I feel so happy to be alive--like something wonderful's going to happen any minute now. Something wonderful's going to happen, bursting out of nowhere, the way the sun just came out. Everything is going to be all right. It's such a strong feeling, like a surge of something very powerful, that I know it must be true. I wish I could explain it better. I wish I could make Mom and her friends understand. I wish I could make everybody in the world understand.

"Let's go, babe," Mom says. She stretches her arms up, over her head, and grins at me. "I need to get to the closest shower. It's an emergency."

I drive us home. I got my learner's permit last summer, and I'm starting driver's ed classes this week, so I need to practice driving as much as I can. The trouble is, I don't have very good depth perception. That's why I have this bad habit of running over curbs. Dad says I shouldn't worry about it, though. It's a bad habit to focus on mistakes, because that's negative. As long as I act like I have confidence in my driving, I'll start to feel it, he says.