Hazel uses Peter Van Houten’s novel AIA as a way to cope with her cancer in a way that speaks to her intellectual ability without having to face the realities of terminal illness. Hazel introduces AIA to the reader by stating that she treats the novel as her personal bible, “the book that was as close a thing as I had to a Bible”(13) and goes on to repeatedly referencing it in conversation as well as in the narrative throughout the entire novel. Hazel holds the novel to such a high esteem because she can relate to it in a way that she can not with any other medium, or person, or support group that discusses cancer; as supported by Hazel early on in the novel in the form of an inner dialogue: “Anna is honest about all of it in a way no one
