Counting by 7s is an extremely inspirational, emotional, and captivating book about a 12 year old girl, Willow Chance, who loves plants, medical conditions, and find it comforting when she counts by 7s. But when she loses a very important part of her, everything that she loves and cares about, she thinks that her life will never be the same again. Sloan writes, “The tears will not stop. And I almost never cry. But I’m not myself. I will forever be someone else now”(Sloan 110), she tells us that she will never be the same again and this tragedy had really changed her. Willow has always struggled to make connections, but once she meets a high school girl who just happens to be in the right place at the right time, she becomes her friend. When the author says, “We were sitting...when I said to her in Vietnamese: ‘You are my new best friend’”(Sloan 98), this indicates that Willow is comfortable enough with the girl to call her “best friend.” Her journey takes her from getting stitches on her glabella, to building a new garden in a spot that had only contained rocks. She starts to build a new sense of what happiness is, even if it is not what she was used to having. Once she realizes that she could still be happy, or at least have a little hope, she starts to gain perspective of things again and comes to terms with her new life. The author did an amazing job in keeping the plot structure simple but extensive and very understandable. Something that was kind of confusing was the way she sometimes worded things, but you would still get around to understanding what she was trying to say. This book made me realize that even when the worst happens, you should still have hope, even if it’s not a lot. I would definitely recommend this book to people who like a dynamic plot, because it consists of sad, happy, funny, and suspenseful moments.