Send Me A Sign

Author: Tiffany Schmidt
Goodreads Rating: 4.07
Pages: 384
Format: Finished Copy from the Publisher

Mia is always looking for signs. A sign that she should get serious with her soccer-captain boyfriend. A sign that she’ll get the grades to make it into an Ivy-league school. One sign she didn’t expect to look for was: “Will I survive cancer?” It’s a question her friends would never understand, prompting Mia to keep her illness a secret. The only one who knows is her lifelong best friend, Gyver, who is poised to be so much more. Mia is determined to survive, but when you have so much going your way, there is so much more to lose. From debut author Tiffany Schmidt comes a heart-wrenching and ultimately uplifting story of one girl’s search for signs of life in the face of death.

This book was really sad and adorable and crazy good, and hard for me to read for a few reasons. For one, one of my best friends is named Mia and the though of her having to go through what this Mia did broke my heart, another reason was because one of my other really good friends did go through this, and although the experiences were different for Mia and my friend, the thought of what she had to go through breaks my heart. (It happened while in college and we lived in different places to start with.)

Anywho, I knew that this book was going to be all about Mia and how she grappled with cancer and she had to deal with what kind of an impact it would have on her life. One of her biggest decisions was if she should or should not tell her friends about what she was going through, and she would look for signs to see if she should. 

She does tell her neighbor Gyver about what she is going through after hearing a song that prompts the decision, but she chooses not to tell the "Calendar Girls" her friends who each represent a different season. I felt that her decision was fueled mostly by her mother who will not be getting any mother of the year awards in this book.

I felt that her decision not to tell her friends was frankly a dumb one, and it was not the only decision that I didn't agree with. But more about her friends, I felt that her mother's pressure not to tell them was wrong, and that although it would have been awkward and uncomfortable at first, all she did was hurt herself by not having that extra support when she needed it most.

I did like that the book went into the treatments that she had and the side effects she felt. I loved that this book didn't belittle cancer treatments and what happened to Mia as she went through her Chemo, it was brutal and honest and I really respected that. 

I did wish that Mia had stood on her own a little more. She relied so heavily on her signs that it almost seemed that she was incapable of making a decision for herself. I loved that Gyver got her a black cat named Jinx, and that he tried his best to put the cabosh on her sign obsession. I loved how supportive and caring he was even though she was with Ryan, and he didn't approve.

I adored the book and these characters as they all struggled with Mia's diagnosis and her decisions along the way. I can't wait to see what Schmidt has in store for us in her next book.

The Courts Decision: