We know there will be a happy ending in A Story about Cancer with a Happy Ending, as the title tells us that. Therefore this Columbo-like story (if you know what that means, we can be friends) by India Desjardins (and Solange Ouellet is the translator) of knowing the ending, but seeing how the characters get there, does not have a surprise at the end, but it does have an emotion that has not been felt for a while in these characters lives: Hope.
Told in the style of “a few minutes here” and “a few minutes there” and then “a whole lot of them while waiting over there” adds up into what feels like years, but all is collected into one day as our main character gives us the story up to now. Which is why it feels like it took years to get to the end as you are seeing the years our main character/our girl with cancer, lived with cancer. And we see how those around her lived with it as well. We do not start at the beginning of the journey, but at the end of it. This gives things a different perspective to the struggles she has had and what she sees her family going through; trying to make a normal life in the middle of it all.
The illustrations are abstract but allow you to know who and what is going on. Marianne Ferrer took (what I feel is) an artistic interpretation of what the characters deal with. Things are not real, but they are not unreal either. I would not say dreamy, but there is a dream-like quality. They would not be my first choice, yet work perfectly with the overall presentation. They support and become their own character. The color of red and brown are important. It is an emotional read and everyone will take something different from it depending on backgrounds, biases and feelings on the subject.
Overall, we are not just following the characters journey, but see metaphors used. Anything from a door, to clothes to a chair might have a deeper meaning, and yet things are perfectly straight forward. The author afterwards tells us that Desjardins met a girl who had cancer and wanted a story with a happy ending. This is the result of that, so it is just a story with a happy ending, but the adult reader in me was seeing more. This allows the age of the reader to span from 10 to 110.