Cures for Heartbreak

This weekend I have been reading up a storm. I still have a huge stack of books I need to read and really want to get through, but I did get through three books in the past two days and have a fourth underway as well. As long as I don't load up on books while I am blogging here at the library this afternoon, there may be hope.

Cures for Heartbreak by Margo Rabb is a wonderful young adult novel. I had read some reviews on this book a while ago, and initially thought it might be too sad to read. While this book is definitely not a happy story, it was also not depressing. Mia is a teenager when her mother dies - just twelve days after being diagnosed with melanoma that had metastasized. She and her sister and father form a family of their own, continuing their lives as best they can. In addition to some struggles with school and wishing for more knowledge of her mother, Mia's father has a heart attack and spends time in the hospital recovering from heart surgery. There is a lot of change in Mia's life - her sister goes off to college and Mia's father begins dating Sylvie - and many things for Mia to think about and deal with. I enjoyed Mia's recollections of what life was like before her mother's sickness, helping fill out the picture of what Mia's relationship was like with her mother.

And while I wish sadness on no one, the fact that Rabb herself lost her mother and then her father in such quick succession during her teen years, gives authenticity to Mia's story. Rabb understands the grief of losing a parent and the fact that the grief will never go away entirely.

I would love to check in with Mia as time passes in her life, and hope that I will have an opportunity to read more of Rabb's work.

Visit Margo Rabb's website.