Staring Down the Dragon

Rating:
Summary: A Compassionate and Enjoyable Read
Review: Being a teenager is difficult enough, but when you're recovering from cancer it's worse. Estrella "Rell" DeMello is returning to Kailua High School after having left to undergo a treatment program for cancer. Now in remission, Rell has to contend with everyone knowing that she truly is "different" and as well deal with the constant threat of a relapse. While Rell would like to pretend that she is just a normal teen, she must adjust from a life where her illness was always her family's focus. Rell copes through this and the traumas of just being a teenager by relying on her sardonic sense of humor, her best friend Emi, and the support of her family.

Taking place on the island of Oahu, Buckingham does an exemplary job conveying the flavors and people of Hawaii. In Rell she has created a character who speaks with the authentic voice of a teenager, at times childish and at other times painfully mature. Although suffering from a cruel illness, Rell's sharp wit and strength make her a very likeable and admirable character.

This is a wonderfully entertaining read that isn't just a "cancer book." All teens will be able to relate with Rell's dealings with the popular girls, monstrous teachers, and the chance at a new romance. Parents as well will be able to sympathize with Rell's mother, a woman who feels unbearably guilty for not protecting Rell from the illness and yet who must also learn to let Rell grow up on her own. Anyone whose family has been touched by cancer or who has even just been a teenager will find comfort and joy in this novel.

Rating:
Summary: A Compassionate and Enjoyable Read
Review: Being a teenager is difficult enough, but when you're recovering from cancer it's worse. Estrella "Rell" DeMello is returning to Kailua High School after having left to undergo a treatment program for cancer. Now in remission, Rell has to contend with everyone knowing that she truly is "different" and as well deal with the constant threat of a relapse. While Rell would like to pretend that she is just a normal teen, she must adjust from a life where her illness was always her family's focus. Rell copes through this and the traumas of just being a teenager by relying on her sardonic sense of humor, her best friend Emi, and the support of her family.

Taking place on the island of Oahu, Buckingham does an exemplary job conveying the flavors and people of Hawaii. In Rell she has created a character who speaks with the authentic voice of a teenager, at times childish and at other times painfully mature. Although suffering from a cruel illness, Rell's sharp wit and strength make her a very likeable and admirable character.

This is a wonderfully entertaining read that isn't just a "cancer book." All teens will be able to relate with Rell's dealings with the popular girls, monstrous teachers, and the chance at a new romance. Parents as well will be able to sympathize with Rell's mother, a woman who feels unbearably guilty for not protecting Rell from the illness and yet who must also learn to let Rell grow up on her own. Anyone whose family has been touched by cancer or who has even just been a teenager will find comfort and joy in this novel.

Rating:
Summary: Oahu Island News Review
Review: Book Review - Staring Down the Dragon

By: Randolph Giudice
Oahu Island News

And now a confession from the reviewer: My mom died from lung cancer when I was only nine years old. She led a healthy life, no smoking, no drinking; but at the age of forty-seven there she was, rationing out Clark bars on Halloween, from a hospital bed we had set up in our living room.

This is how it happened. One day my mom sneezed and fell down a flight of stairs. A doctor gave her an X-Ray, and discovered a tumor - like a teakettle she left boiling too long on the stove - sitting on her lung. A year later she was gone.

For some people, cancer is not a choice, but a way of life. For Rell De-Mello, the feisty Kailua High School sophomore in Dorothea Buckingham's Staring Down the Dragon, it's an end-less supply of embarrassing moments. A glowing example of "successful" cancer treatment, Rell spends what should be her first day back at school, hiding out in McDonalds. Concealing her bald head under a wig, Rell has lost her eyelashes, her eyebrows, and as far as she's concerned, her future dating prospects. Even Rell's reliable 34 B chest has taken a vacation after chemotherapy for Hodgkin's' Disease.

At school, people treat her like a star. She walks into a standing ovation in English class, gets special treatment from teachers, and Wanda Yamanaka wants her to write an inspirational piece for the school paper on "what it was like to almost die." But Rell knows what people really want to hear: "Once upon a time Estrella DeMello had cancer, and she lived happily ever after".

Like most girls in Hawaii, Rell dreams of handsome surfers and limbo parties with "six-foot-three lifeguards pouring pina coladas down her throat". But sun-screen, therapy sessions, blood tests, and endless precautions - like making sure her dog doesn't make her sick - won't allow her to forget that she's different. Even her best friend Emi calls her the "Cancer Queen" when her disease threatens to overwhelm their friendship.

The only person Rell feels safe with is LB, her old roomie from Stanhope Hospital. But LB's leukemia may make that Grand Canyon trip they've been planning a thing of the past. It's only when Rell meets Nate Lee, a handsome junior with a secret of his own, that Rell decides to let somebody in. With love and understanding, Nate shows her that cancer doesn't have to take over her life.

Novels about illness usually have their work cut out for them, and as great as these books may be, their subject matter alone gives you the awkward feeling of waiting for test results. But Dragon is first and foremost about being a teenager, and Buckingham
captures the essence of high school experience.

Like the best teen novels, Staring Down the Dragon is great because it's honest. Rell doesn't teach us to live every moment as if it's our last. She acts like the rest of us: scared, uncertain, and looking for answers. Cancer survivors don't feel quite like anybody else, and Dorothea Buckingham lends Rell an authentic voice by letting us see just how difficult it is for someone recovering from cancer to begin to feel normal again.

An uplifting story about overcoming fear, and accepting change, Staring Down the Dragon is really about living after cancer - maybe the hardest journey of all.

Staring Down the Dragon by Dorothea N. Buckingham
Sydney Press, 207 pgs.

Rating:
Summary: Richie's Picks: STARING DOWN THE DRAGON
Review: Cancer scares me. Shari and I have both lost our moms to It during the past five years. Everyone, from rock stars to relatives, old friends to infamous assassins get It. Sometimes, even kids.

"All I wanted to do was sneak back to my old desk and pretend that nothing had ever happened.
"Going back to school after being treated for cancer wasn't like the first day after summer vacation. I didn't think any teachers would ask me to write an essay on what I did on my chemotherapy vacation."

Hawaiian teenager Rell DeMello has survived It. Across the ocean in the San Francisco hospital where she'd lived and had been treated over the past year, there are kids--including Rell's best friend--who are dying from It. But Rell is counting the eyelashes which have grown back, adjusting her wig, and returning to the high school where everyone knows what she has been up to since leaving unexpectedly.

" 'Good luck, Sweetheart,' Mom yelled from the car.
"I looked back. She waved and threw me a kiss like she was the grand marshall of the Mother Love Parade.
" 'Smile, Rell,' I told myself. 'Just smile.'
Kailua High School's two-story building looked like a towering castle. I climbed the steps, working my way through swarms of kids getting in a last blast of a CD or a last grinding kiss. I hugged my backpack to my chest to keep anyone from bumping into me.
"It was like they were in a fast-forward video and I was in slow motion. I got to the door, put my hand on the handle, turned and walked down the steps and straight to McDonald's, where I spent the rest of the day."

In a world of friends and boys and papers due Thursday, Rell is dealing with thoughts and feelings that her Hawaiian friends just cannot understand, powerful dreams that she dare not share with them, and the fear that It will show up again, or will soon kill L.B. back in San Francisco.

"...And I'll be better, I'll be better, Doc, as soon as I am able..."

Another complication of Rell's moving forward is the fact that:

"I was an only child--the only one who could be blamed for drawing cows on the wall or feeding peanut butter to the dog. No brothers, no sisters, no one to distract Mom and Dad from me or my cancer."

This makes things even worse for Rell when her mom becomes a control freak and her dad fruitlessly demands that assurance that his kid won't have to face It again.

" 'Tell her, David,' Mom said.
"Dad turned down the stove and put the spatula down. 'Your mother read about a veterinarian who quit taking care of dogs because he had Hodgkin's disease.'
" 'So?'
" 'Having a dog may be a serious health risk for you.' He sounded apologetic.
" 'You must be kidding?' I turned to Mom.
" 'Rell, you have to be aware of the risks,' Mom said.
" 'I cannot believe this.' I looked to Dad for help.
" 'Hear your mother out on this, Rell,' he said.
"I threw my hands up in the air.
" 'Dogs carry a virus,' she said. 'It's the virus that's the concern. It can kill you,' Mom said.
" 'Bacon can kill me. Eggs can kill me.'
" 'Rell, you don't know what having a dog in the house, letting him sleep with you, having him lick you can do. You don't know what you're risking,' Mom said."

STARING DOWN THE DRAGON is painfully realistic. The manner in which it is written with an abundance of dialogue gives the story an immediacy that flings the reader into the seat of the roller coaster that is Rell's life.

A minor quibble with the book is that the occasional error in punctuation makes you think you're reading an advance copy, but such errors are easily forgiven in light of the strength of the story Rell shares with us.

Knowledge often brings understanding and compassion and acceptance to that which was previously unknown. Readers of STARING DOWN THE DRAGON will certainly gain an understanding of the disease's psychological effects on those suffering from or recovering from it, and Its effects on those around them.

Richie Partington
http://richiespicks.com
[e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: Honolulu Star Bulletin
Review: The slim-novel equivalent of a well-meaning afterschool special, this story of a Kailua High cancer survivor is told with economy and grace. Young adults and teens will find it hard to put down.