Review: Send Me a Sign by Tiffany Schmidt

Send Me a Sign by Tiffany Schmidt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Current Goodreads Rating: 3.99

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.

Characters: Mia is admirable even when she's trying to hide the truth.  Her reasons for omitting the truth are understandable.  Afterall, she's only a teenager facing a rough period regardless of the leukemia! She just wants her senior year to be normal, to be able to cheer and be valedictorian.  She's the perfect girl that everyone wants to be, but she learns what is really important when she realizes she could die.

Gyver is Mia's best friend that she's known for forever, and I love him! He looks out for her before she knows she's sick and visits her every day at the hospital. If she needs anything, he drops everything immediately. I also really liked Gyver because he is the opposite of Mia's stereotypical, perfect boyfriend Ryan. He's an introvert that loves music who happens to be gorgeous in a hipster kind of way?

At first, I was not a fan of Ryan because it seemed like he only wanted a physical relationship with Mia.  However, once he opened up to Mia, I liked him.  Then, I really liked him when he stayed by Mia's side when she told him her secret.  The love triangle was great because for awhile, I was happy with her ending up with Ryan, but still sad that Gyver would be left alone.  Bad love triangles make one guy look great and the other a complete idiot.  I don't blame him for the way he ultimately handles the situation.

I hated Mia's friends for most of the book, and I didn't really forgive them at the end. First, I couldn't relate to them because they seem so superficial. Most of all, I hated the way they react to finding out about Mia. The reactions were selfish, and they didn't consider why she would keep it a secret!

Plot: This is not a cancer book written by Nicholas Sparks. It's beautifully written and gives people hope. 

*This is Tiffany Schmidt's first book but I read it after her second book, Bright Before Sunrise. I noticed that the two have overlapping plots. They take place in two nearby towns and mention the other place in the books.  This was cool!   

View all my reviews