Rating: 4.75/5

The 4.75 is for the tears, the laughs, the swooning and Mia's heartbreaking fight with the Cancer, but if I wanted to be truthful and honest, it was mostly because of: GYVER. I haven't read about such a nice, charming, funny, compassionate, patient and romantic guy in a while (not since Jase). I love the boys in YA fiction who are realistic and act like normal persons and more importantly like teenagers.
He made me want to hug him and kiss him senseless, and to strangle Mia for being so blind to his obvious feelings.

I felt so frustrated the whole time she was choosing Ryan over him, and that cost the book 0.25. Ryan was nice but I didn't like him.

Full review to come with the other ones, once I finish all my exams. ( )

Lovely

Happy, popular cheerleader Mia is ready for a relaxed summer spent with her friends and with Gyver, the guy next door she's been friends with for years - but not at the same time, her other friends and Gyver don't get along. It's her summer before senior year and it's all supposed to be perfect.

Then a trip to the doctor - followed by some other trips - gives Mia news she never expected: Mia has cancer.

It seems like the first thing she'd do would be to tell her friends, for support if nothing else. But some well placed words from her mother help Mia rethink that decision. Mia's mother and father, who each react quite differently don't react to the news in what I would call typical fashion. Their reaction, along with the actions it spurs in Mia make Send Me a Sign both unique and quite realistic seeming.

While in situations - even remotely similar - that I've been involved in or aware of, the parties involved have chosen to act differently, for these characters, it made sense. Mia's mother's actions, actually, remind me of how someone I know acted - only to a much lesser degree.

They weren't a family who had behaved one way and then all of a sudden, with Mia's diagnosis, another side came out. It was still very much them, we just saw these traits of their personality manifested in a different way, or perhaps magnified.

The other teenage characters were well written. They didn't always do what you wanted them to, or when or how you wanted them to, but in the end you could see why. They had depth and it their actions made them seem both their age and real.

There was a sort of throw-away line about telling someone Mia had a migraine and that's why she had to leave school. I thought something else could have been said/used. Send Me a Sign is such a great novel of understanding - for the character and her experiences - and I've grown tired of the dismissive 'had a migraine' excuse (when the character either only had a headache or needed an excuse for not doing something). It disappointed me a bit.

While Mia is constantly looking at things that might be irrelevant to see if they'r signs - a sign to keep her secret, a sign to tell, a sign for this, for that - and she is getting her cancer treated, she's still trying to have a normal senior year. It's definitely complicated by her cancer - and her secret - but Schmidt hasn't forgotten that through it all Mia is a teenager.

Mia's normal teenage issues - dating, parties, cheerleading, academics - aren't pushed away in the face of her illness, but they're also not written as if nothing has changed for her. In her debut, Tiffany Schmidt has found a way to tell a story that not only perfectly balances but actually intertwines Mia's cancer battle along with her quest to remain a normal teenager with friends, love and happiness.


Rating: 9.5/10




**I love Gyver's name . . . and he's not too bad, either.

a good read but also sad. ( )

This is just one of those books where I didn't like the main character (or at least her decisions), but I still liked the book on the whole. Because even though Mia clearly had trust and self-esteem issues, all the bad decisions forced her to realize this. And start to work on it - and her friendships. Which = good thing.

This isn't your typical "I just got diagnosed by cancer" book. Really, it's not. There are very few medical discussions, and the time Mia spends in the hospital actually seems pretty short.

No, this is a book about Pretending Cancer Doesn't Exist To Your Friends to Stay Popular. Which - I sorta get? But mostly I didn't.

Just, ugh. Was so ososososososososososo frustrated by Mia's decision-making process. And of how little she thought of herself and her friends.

So, not particularly liking Mia nor understanding why she continued to make irrational (to me) decisions did have an effect on my view of the story. Esp. since the fallout from those decisions was basically the main plot (like I said, not an I Have Cancer book so much as a How I'm Dealing With Cancer book). But, I got it. I did. She's terrified. And believes in signs. And just wants to be normal. Not The Girl with Cancer.

And there were a lot of elements of the book I really liked: both of the guys, Gyver and Ryan, were well-depicted. Ryan especially. I wanted to hate him SO much and he never allowed me to. That was both a surprise and great.

And Mia's relationships with the adult figures in her life were also great. Like I said, I wish she would have stood up to her mom a bit more, but on the whole, I liked it. (Esp. the contrast between her mom and Gyver's mom.)

( )