A Story About Cancer With a Happy Ending follows a teenage girl as she walks toward a hospital waiting room, where doctors are about to share news that could change everything. With each step, she reflects on what she loves most in life—family moments, small everyday pleasures, and her feelings for her boyfriend, Victor.
Combining gentle humour with raw honesty, the narrator describes living with cancer as a teenager: the hospital’s harsh lighting, the headscarves, exhausting treatments, and the pressure to “stay strong” when she sometimes feels anything but. She longs to be treated like a normal person, even as she wrestles with fear, anger, and the temptation to give up.
Dreamlike illustrations evoke the shifting emotions of illness, from loneliness and pain to connection and fragile hope. Inspired by a real conversation with a young girl in a Montreal hospital who asked for a story about cancer that didn’t end in tragedy, this book offers a rare perspective that is both truthful and ultimately uplifting.
Thoughtfully written for young readers and the adults who care for them, it can provide comfort, open conversations about serious illness, and reassure children that hope and love can exist alongside fear.
