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This lyrical and understated narrative from Helle (This Should Be Written in the Present Tense) catalogs the routines of an unnamed girl and her mother after the mother learns she has advanced breast cancer. Given six months to a year to live, the mother neither panics nor despairs; neither does the daughter. They simply keep on playing games on the way to the laundromat, doing dishes while eating sweets, getting their hair done in the salon beneath their apartment, and throwing cozy parties for their small circle of friends. The daughter makes notes for a book she imagines writing as a grown woman, and studies alongside friends like the incorrigible Tove Dunk and farmboy Bob, while the mother continues to shop and socialize. “It’s the maddest of days,” Tove observes, but the novel mostly maintains a pleasant tone in such quotidian scenes as the purchase of a cauliflower or the selection of a thermal jacket before chemistry class. Readers will relish this simple tribute to the preciousness of days spent with loved ones. Agent: Gina Winje, Winje Agency. (Feb.)