Kate Bowler, Everything Happens For a Reason And Other Lies I’ve Loved, 2018
Having cancer isn’t funny, but that doesn’t mean we have to stop telling jokes.
What makes Bowler’s book significant in the world of books about cancer is that she is dying and she’s not. She has Stage 4 colon cancer that is being held at bay by experimental chemotherapy and immunotherapy, and lives two months at a time, from one checkup to the next. If the checkup is good, then she knows she has two more months of life. If it’s not, then she knows to start saying goodbye.