Early on in Anna Byrne’s exquisite memoir, Seven Year Summer, she tells us, “illness has its own terms.” Early on, it’s also clear Byrne knows that on a cellular level, as she tells her story precisely on her own terms—part nuts and bolts rendering of a life lived seven years with cancer (after reading this memoir I’d be loathe to use the term “battling”), part poetry of living, and part spiritual journalism (for Byrne is as clear and exacting as a journalist on her spiritual path). Byrne pulls no punches in reliving her anguish and fear, but mostly she pinpoints the small gestures and seemingly unremarkable events that make this “messy, marvelous life of ours” worth living. Not only does Byrne live, she also returns to the lion’s den (a hospital not unlike the place she spent over 2000 hours as a patient) to bear witness to the end of another life. Much like a beloved book of poems, Seven Year Summer might serve as a companion to living, the kind of book you have to reread—or listen to the audio book version with Jacqueline Kim’s breathtaking narration—every so often to remind yourself of what really makes life livable.