The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Jaouad, Suleika. Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted. Penguin Random House LLC, 2021.

In Suleika Jaouad's first person memoir, Between Two Kingdoms, she details her experiences suffering from and surviving cancer as a young woman. When Suleika was finishing her college degree, she was prepared for all that her life might offer. After graduation, she moved to New York City for a summer internship. While living in Manhattan, she resided in a diminutive apartment with several roommates. She spent most of her time drinking, taking drugs, sleeping very little, and working. By the time the summer ended, Suleika had come to hate the person she was becoming. Desperate for an escape, she secured a paralegal job in Paris, France.

When she first arrived in Paris, Suleika felt relieved and energized. Even her bizarre itching symptoms and plaguing fatigue seemed to dissipate. She convinced herself that these ailments were merely a result of her lifestyle in the city. However, the longer she stayed in Paris, the less dreamlike her life seemed. Meanwhile, she kept up with a young man she met in New York before moving. His name was Will. Feeling impulsive, she invited him to visit. During his trip to Paris, he and Suleika realized they wanted to be together. He moved overseas shortly thereafter.

For a time, the new couple shared a happy little life in the romantic city together. However, Suleika's health soon began to deteriorate. Her fatigue worsened. She had sores on her body and in her mouth. No matter how many doctors she saw, she still had no answers. Finally they sent her back to the United States to be with her family while she got more medical attention.

Not long after moving back in with her parents, Anne and Hédi, in Saratoga, New York, Suleika was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. At first, Suleika felt relieved. Finally she had a name for her sickness. The more she learned about the disease and the treatment, the more worried she became. She realized she was losing her identity and her life.

Will moved back to New York, and devoted himself to Suleika's care. Suleika's parents were alarmed and impressed by his devotion. Over the following months, Suleika's condition worsened. Even the chemotherapy did not appear to be helping. The sicker she became, the more angry she felt. She resented her parents and Will. She hated that he had a life outside of her. She believed if she kept him close she could avoid losing him. The more needy she acted, the more trapped Will felt.

Finally Suleika's doctors gave her approval to move out of Saratoga. She and Will moved into an East Village apartment. Suleika felt free for the first time in a long time. Her feelings soon changed as new tensions arose between her and Will. Eventually they decided to break up.

In the aftermath of their breakup, Suleika did not attend to her heartbreak. She decided that to start over, she must bury the past and start over. She took trips to India and Vermont. She scattered her friend's ashes and spent time alone writing. Then one day she decided that she needed to take a cross-country road trip. During her time in the hospital, she had started a blog that won her national attention. The blog also connected her to innumerable people around the country. She mapped the trip, planning her stops according to the contacts she would visit.

As she ventured from coast to coast, Suleika learned new things about herself and her life. The time alone in the car forced her to confront her grief, despair, anger, loneliness, and fear. For the first time in months, she felt as if she was freeing herself from the past, and creating a new reality for herself.