Avery (ThePagemaster)'s Reviews > The Last Leaves Falling

4.5

What first drew me to this book was that this book centers around ALS(Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) better known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. Quick Lesson: ALS is a nervous system disease that weakens muscles, slowly killing the neurons in your voluntary muscles. In simplest terms, its a slow and painful paralysis of your entire body. The most notable people that Have ALS is Lou Gehrig, the baseball player that was the first, mainstream diagnosis and what the disease is named after and theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking.

If you still don't know, remember those viral videos of people pouring ice, cold water on themselves a couple years ago? They did it for this disease.

Sora(no relation to Kingdom Hearts), like Lou Gehrig, was an aspiring and well-loved baseball player, in school, and was in the middle of a game when the symptoms first hit him--not a spoiler, you learn early on. What I liked about Sora is that he behaved like how someone would typically react if they had such a crippling disease like ALS: Death is upon him; can't play baseball, hang out with friends, or even more remedial things we take for granted like walking; future looks bleak, at best. The only comfort in his life is a book of ancient wisdom from samurai his doctor gave him and an online chatroom site, where he meets two friends, Mai and Kaito.

First off, this book takes place in Kyoto, Japan. Five stars, right there. Plenty of people outside of USA that feel the same ways we do, so YAY Diversity! (Plus, visiting Kyoto, Japan = #lifegoals)

Secondly, this book tackles ableism, which is what it sounds like: discrimination against those with physical disabilities. There are scenes where Sora is just trying to live life a little around his disease and people judge him for simple things like moving to the first in like at a roller coaster. You can't help but go "You got legs! You can walk/eat/bathe/piss/shit by yourself; he can't!" Imagine, not just your mind, but your psyche if that was suddenly taken away from you. It also shows the humility Sora feels for suddenly becoming dependent on his mother, his grandparents, and his friends to help him do all those things for him.

Overall, the book deals with life. And death. How would you live life with something that is slowly killing you, and painfully? Would you want to live? Even Stephen Hawking admits that once he feels like he has no more contributions to our world, he'd consider assisted suicide (trigger warning btw). It's powerful, with light moments of life and friendship and family, and memories.