I Never Wanted to Live a Small Life

For fans of Between Two Kingdoms, a first-of-its kind millennial memoir exploring a young woman’s radical act of living big even when life seems determined to make her feel small.

As a professional campaign strategist, Kayla Calkin has had a front-row seat to history. But in early 2022—when she is thirty-six, pregnant, and working toward planet-saving climate legislation—life throws her a devastating curveball: breast cancer.

Suddenly, Kayla’s world swings from political maneuvering and preparing for motherhood to chemo infusions. Between a drug trial, an IVF roller coaster, and a climate bill, her world spins out of control. A month into treatment, she grows ill with meningitis and finds herself fighting for her life in the ICU. Later, as she struggles to keep up with Congress as they try to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, her mental health teeters on the brink. But through it all, she strives to keep the promise she and her partner, Zac, made to each other: to live a big life.

Witty and deeply personal, I Never Wanted to Live a Small Life reveals the reality of a new generation of young adult cancers and the brutal, beautiful collision of health crises and work ambitions. Kayla initially thinks cancer will make her life smaller—but in the end, she discovers that it makes her life bigger in ways she never could have imagined.