scijessreads

The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot – I don’t cry very often (probably to my detriment). I keep a lot of things in, and while I may tear up or feel deep emotions a lot of the time, very rarely does it spill over into actual tears and gulping breaths and utter devastation.

By the end of this book, I was trying to hold back tears and failed spectacularly. Sometimes the simplest stories, the ones that are about people and life and choices and accidents… those are the ones that make the biggest impact. This one broke my heart, and at the same time, made it feel whole.

Lenni is a teenager with a terminal illness. She is alone, in the hospital in Glasgow, trying to live the last of her days with some semblance of agency. She is blunt, wise, and ready to make mischief. In her world within the hospital walls, she befriends Father Arthur, the chaplain, and Margot, an 83-year-old heart patient. And in these two souls, she finds answers, more questions, and a chance to live a life in whatever days remain to her.

Margot has lived a life. A life of sadness, and happiness, a life where she has loved and been loved. Maybe not always in the best of ways, but in ways that forever shaped her and allowed her to both grow and appreciate the past.

The stories they tell in painting their combined 100 years of life are ordinary, profound, painful, and hopeful. They give Lenni a chance to live through Margot and Margot a chance to remember everything that she has been able to do in her many years.

There is a line in the book, one that I actually have as wallpaper for my phone, that I did not know the origin of until reading this book. And now, having read the book and found a new significance for the line, it feels even more profound… “I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.” Lenni and Margot are less a story about death and more a story about how to live and appreciate those around you. About keeping promises. About friendship and love.