New entries for the TBR (To Be Read) stakes never stop coming—which is entirely as it should be for any enthusiastic reader—and the newest contender in mine is The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot, the debut novel by Margaret Cronin, published 2021.

I already know this book is a 2022 winner of the Alex Award, given by YALSA (the Young Adult Library Services Association, I believe) in the USA, and has proven hugely popular internationally.

From the synopsis, it’s a heartwarming but (I strongly suspect) bittersweet, “spring and winter” story of Lenni, seventeen years old and hospitalized with cancer, and eighty-three-year-old Margot, who is a fellow patient in the same hospital. They strike up a friendship, and the titular one hundred years is the sum of their shared ages and life stories.

It’s not a spoiler to say that one or both of them is going to die, because the backcover matter tells me that “their last…[story]…begins here.” So I suspect tears will be shed in the reading thereof, and have already resolved to have tissues on hand. 😉

Watch this space to find out whether I’m right, as well as the rest of m’terribly important thoughts—although as is often the case, I suspect many of you will have already beaten me to the reading draw. 😀