Fifteen years ago, Alice Hoffman received a diagnosis that changed everything about the life she’d been living. Most significant—aside from the grueling physical ordeal she underwent—was the way it changed how she felt inside and what she thought she ought to be doing with her days. Now she has written the book that she needed to read then.

In this honest, wise, and upbeat guide, Alice Hoffman provides a road map for the making of one’s life into the very best it can be. As she says, “In many ways I wrote this book to remind myself of the beauty of life, something that’s all too easy to overlook during the crisis of illness or loss. There were many times when I forgot about roses and starry nights. I forgot that our lives are made up of equal parts sorrow and joy, and that it’s impossible to have one without the other. . . . I wrote to remind myself that in the darkest hour the roses still bloom, the stars still come out at night. And to remind myself that, despite everything that was happening to me, there were still some choices I could make.”