Contrary to the reviews I've read on this novel, The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin, I did not find the story funny.  To the contrary, I found it sad.  The two main characters, Lenni and Margot, are in the hospital, dying.  Lenni's story is heartbreaking.  Her mother leaves the family, her husband and Lenni, to go back to Sweden. The father leaves his dying daughter, in the hospital, to go find happiness in Poland, where his new girlfriend lives. 

The funny parts are Lenni's quips.  She has a quick, different take on situations.  Her descriptions are brutally honest. The title comes from an idea Lenni and Margot have in their art therapy class.  When you add Lenni's 17 years to Margot's 83, you get 100.  So the two of them plan to make 100 paintings depicting each year of their lives.  With each year or so, a story is told.  Lenni's is about her mother and her leaving the family behind.  Margot's paintings tell various lives.  She married young and her baby died.  She got divorced and fell into a bohemian type of lifestyle but found a soul mate.   She marries later in life and finally had a settled and comfortable life, until he died.  Finally, she may travel to go back to her bohemian friend, if she gets better.  That's a big "if." She's really too sick to leave the hospital, never mind to go traipsing to a foreign country.  She is 83, after all.

I almost forgot to mention Father Arthur.  He is Lenni's friend.  She wanders into the hospital chapel one day and they strike up a conversation.  He and Margot are with Lenni to the end.  They are good friends.

What is interesting is that the novel makes a life in what could have been no life.  I mean what kind of life and adventures can anyone have in a hospital?  I guess you'll have to read The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot, to find out.