“Between Two Kingdoms” by Suleika Jaouad

Life had a different plan.

When we're young we think we can plan our lives. We have dreams and goals, and go through many steps and challenges to achieve them. However, Life may have a different plan for us.

And that is happened to Suleika Jaouad when she was 22.

Fresh out of college and with the dream of becoming a war correspondent, Jaouad moved to Paris and started what she thought would be the next stage of her life - along with the excitement of a new job and a new boyfriend. However, a ferocious itch and an unusual fatigue that began during her senior year of college would soon take her in a totally different direction - the diagnosis of leukemia, with a 35% chance of survival.

In her memoir, Jaouad walks us through the three years of her chemotherapy treatment, a clinical trial, and a bone marrow transplant. She shares the impact her illness had on her family, her boyfriend, and of course, herself. Through her words we learn about the severe treatments she went through, the strong relationships she developed with fellow cancer patients, and how she documented her insights and feelings into a New York Times weekly column called "Life, interrupted".

The book is divided into two parts - Jaouad's life during her illness, and her life after she was declared in remission. This memoir poses a thought-provoking question - what do you do with your life after it was suddenly interrupted, brutally shaken, and your focus for years was to fight to stay alive? How do you re-enter life?

The second part of the book walks readers through the author's journey when she found herself back in the "kingdom of the well". Looking for the answer to what to do now that she was healthy again, she chose to embark on a 100-day road trip across the country to visit strangers who had reached out to her during the years of her treatment - accompanied only by Oscar, her loyal terrier.

I really liked this book and applaud the courage of the author in sharing her journey through both "kingdoms" in such detail. It's one of those books that you make you stop and realize how fragile we can be, and the importance of living every day to the fullest. Although it's a memoir about the author's struggle  with an aggressive type of cancer, to me it's not a sad book , but rather the opposite. I found it to be a very inspiring survival story.