Today I’m
going to give you a review of a novel I recently finished reading called “Zac
& Mia” written in 2013 by A.J. Betts. It was pretty inspiring to me and
that’s why I want to share my thoughts about it with you.
Let’s start
with a short summary:
The novel
is about Zac and Mia, two teenagers who meet in hospital. Zac is seventeen
years old and suffers from Leukemia. Because of a bone marrow donation he isn’t
allowed to leave his room. That’s when Mia, a totally angry girl who seems to
not get along with her sufferings from cancer moves in the room next to Zac.
Their special relationship starts with a knocking on the wall beneath them…
I didn’t
want to give much about the content because the story really is worth reading.
It shows the difficulties they have and how people treat their illness very
differently: Zac always reads about statistics and seems to be happy about
still being alive, Mia pretends not to have cancer and tells nobody about it.
But it also deals with how an illness can change you and your whole life and
that there isn’t always a happy ending.
Some
chapters are written in Zac’s perspective, some in Mia’s. That’s why you can
easily put yourself in their position.
What I
don’t like about the book is the title. I mean “Zac and Mia” doesn’t sound very
interesting. I read the German version called “Die Unwahrscheinlichkeit von
Liebe” (= the improbability of love) and think that this fits much better.
The only
thing I want to tell you before reading is that you should not expect a soft
love story. The cancer always plays and important role in their lives and it’s
not that they fall in love directly.
But that’s
exactly what I liked about it. I think the author did a great job and you can
see that she is very well informed about the topic.
Because of
the hype of John Greens “The Fault in our Stars” I would recommend to all of
you who liked this book to read “Zac and Mia” too, I think I even liked it
better than Hazel and Gus’ story.
Now, go the
next book store and get this fabulous novel! :)
Love,
Ninchen
