After Ever After

In the book, After Ever After By Jordan Sonnenblick, Jeffrey, the main character, has a best friend who is in remission, because the cancer he use to have comes back, but he doesn't tell Jeffrey until way after he knows he has it back. Jeffrey and him make a pack to do beautiful gestures towards others that they can call a " beau geste." That is the one thing that they both decide to do for eachother.

"From now on I'm going to be nice to everybody-that's my beau geste. And if people around me keep acting like total snapperheads anyway, I'm going to harden my heart and be bitter until the day I die." (131)

This was Tad's beau geste at the beginning of the book. He was so mean and bitter that he thought if he was nice it would be a grand gesture. If I were him I know it would be hard but I would try my best to be nice because being mean and cruel doesn't get you anywhere in life except hell.

"Impressing Brianna isn't my biggest beau geste... You're my biggest beau geste. Getting you onto that stage is way more important to me than strolling across it." (204)

Here, around the end is where Tad starts to notice his bad friendship skills and is willing to sacrifice something to help his friend graduate and get his diploma. I think that if Tad didn't help Jeffery he wouldn't be passing grade in the first place. Jeffery's dad gave up on him when he refused to continue to help him with homework. Atleast he had Tad, his best friend to thank for his passing grade. Sadly, shorty after having his surgery, Tad's liver failed and he died in the hospital, but he never really left the hearts of the people who truly cared about him.

In all, the beau geste thing that Jeffrey and Tad was great because it just brought them closer as friends and made them feel even more like if the were to be family.