Cancer books don’t work for me. There’s an artificiality in the plot and there burden of the story falls upon the reader, rather than on the story teller: because we all have something we can associate with cancer in our own lives, we bring that to the novel. That emotional baggage then carries through the story. More than that, though, characters in the story become victims and heroes simultaneously, without any particular reason other than they’re faced with a horrific illness. The writing floats on the diagnoses rather than on character development or on a story arc beyond the cancer, and the emotional investment is inauthentic. It’s reader manipulation.

That’s not the case with Send Me A Sign, Tiffany Schmidt’s debut novel. In fact, this pushes against the books in the cancer genre that do that.

Mia has cancer — leukemia, in fact. But when she receives the diagnosis, she doesn’t want anyone to know. She hides it from her best girl friends, knowing that it would make her a victim/hero. Knowing it would mean that they would change how they treat her. It’s not just that she’s hiding it from them to protect herself, though; she does it because her mother pressures her to do so. It would shatter the illusion of perfect. Mia’s popular, well-liked, and admired. Cancer would change that. 

The thing is, Mia can’t hide her illness from everyone. After a night out at a party, on the drive home and after hearing one of those songs — a sign — Mia asks her best guy friend Gyver to pull the car over. And she tells him. Where she finally allows herself to feel something about it, to shed a few tears, Gyver is strong and steadfast. He wants to know the details and how they can get through this. Yes, they. He’s committed himself right there to fight with her to ensure she comes back stronger than she was before.

She checks into the hospital the following day for chemotherapy, but not before she covers all her bases with her friends. They all believe she’s going to a family member’s house for an extended vacation, though Gyver knows the truth.While building this story for her friends, it becomes clear that there is another guy in Mia’s life: Ryan. The athletic stud who all the girls would love to date but who has a less-than-stunning reputation for how he treats the ladies he dates. Mia’s not sure she’s ready for him, given this reputation. And given the cancer. It’s something she thinks about briefly but doesn’t put a whole lot of stock in, at least prior to her time in the hospital.

It’s a tough chapter to read as Mia’s body reacts to the treatment; at times, she’s lucid and thorough in reporting how she feels and what’s going on. Other times, there are very short blurbs of dialog and little else. Rather than give a blow-by-blow of the technical aspects of the chemo, we’re given the experience first-hand with Mia. We know when she’s feeling okay and when she’s feeling horrible. We’re getting it too. But what Schmidt excels in by writing the treatment this way is that it’s one chapter and it’s over. We aren’t subjected to any more or any less of the hospital experience than necessary. Once Mia is done with treatment, so are we. Because the thing is, this is a story about what happens outside of that.

Now that the chemo is over, Mia and Ryan become closer. As their relationship grows, Mia begins to understand the reputation Ryan had about being a bit of a player may not be true. That in fact, he’s invested in her and their relationship. But she’s not ready, particularly because she doesn’t want his sympathy due to her cancer. She’s gun shy and worried about him finding out the truth. Yet, he still wants her, still cares about her. And there’s also Gyver, her best friend. He is Mia’s rock through all of this, and not just because she has cancer and confided that in him. It’s because he’s always been her rock. He’s always been there for her through good and bad things. I wouldn’t say it took cancer for her to come to this realization — I think Mia’s a hell of a lot stronger of a character than that — but it was through her ability to confide such a huge thing in him where she realizes what he is to her.

What made Send Me A Sign work for me and stand apart from the crowd of cancer lit is that it never once felt like a cancer story, and that’s due in part to the fact Mia chooses to hide it. Even if it feels like it’s for selfish reasons and an effort to protect her reputation, the truth is, Mia doesn’t feel human anymore. She’s so far removed from herself, from her body, and from the experience all together, that she refuses to think about what this all means for her on a grander scale. There’s a real loss of control in her life and in her choices. Where it could be easy to dislike her because she’s lying so much and because, well, she’s at times simply hard to handle, it’s not the cancer that manipulates the reader into finding her sympathetic. It’s the fact she’s gained our trust because we are in on the secret. We know the inner world of Mia more than anyone. We know how complicated it is and how little she finds herself caring for and loving herself. This came to a head for me during a conversation Mia has with her father, something I’m still thinking about months after reading the book. He says to her quite simply: “Sick or not, you’re a person to be respected.” In this moment, she has a wake up call. She realizes how much value she has as a person, a whole person, and not just as an unfortunate victim of circumstances. As a victim of cancer.  

While I shy away from the love triangle story line, that’s not what I saw here. Instead, Schmidt develops a great metaphor between the relationships Mia has with these two boys and her relationship to her own body as it fights leukemia. Gyver, the steady constant in her life, is the thing that’s always been there. That’s her determination and strength and strong-will. Ryan, the new thing, is the experience of dealing with cancer and navigating something different. He himself isn’t a cancer; far from it. But he and the cancer share the qualities of being new challenges to face. There’s one scene in the book where this metaphor sings, and it involves Mia’s cat. Although I felt a tiny bit manipulated by it (I think anyone with this sort of experience would feel that way), it ultimately drives home the powerful friendship between Mia and Gyver. They’re rock solid, even if sometimes Mia doesn’t feel that way. Schmidt nailed romantic tension throughout the story in a way that worked for me, even though I’m not a romantic. It was reminiscent of Jenny Han’s “Summer” series, the way the main character has complete agency but still wants to satisfy her heart and both of her choices have their positive aspects and their negative aspects. There is no perfect person in Schmidt’s story, which is precisely why this works.

Another side of Mia I haven’t touched on yet but I think a lot of readers will dig: there’s a weaving of superstition throughout. Mia believes in these signs, believes that if she listens to the right song at the right moment, she needs to act a certain way. That if she does things in a certain order, it will give her control. This, of course, all relates right back to the notion of control and illusion of control. But more than that, Schmidt’s use of this character trait ties into what may be the biggest take away of this story — what it means to choose. Mia has to make so many choices, and none of them are easy. She has to consider who she lets in and who she doesn’t let in. What she is to herself and what she is to others. Whether or not she’s strong enough to go this alone or whether she needs support. Following those signs is a choice Mia makes. It’s never about a right choice or a wrong choice; it’s about choice, period.

There were a couple of minor issues I had with the story. The first is that I felt that Mia’s friends were forgettable and interchangeable. They don’t play a huge role in the story, and that’s because Mia chooses that as her way of handling them. It makes sense they aren’t fully-developed, and it makes sense I found them annoying when they were around. My other quibble was that I wish I had known Mia a little more prior to the diagnosis. I didn’t wish to know what led to her seeking out a doctor for feeling ill; rather, I wish I had gotten to know her on an emotional and relationship-interaction level a little more. For me, that would have made the already-strong character arc even stronger. If anything, it’s a sign of how much I cared about Mia and how much I wanted to know her even more.  

Send Me A Sign isn’t a book about a girl who becomes wiser, more insightful, more worldly, or more well-loved because she’s tackling cancer. It’s a book about a girl who figures out what it means to respect herself and understand the fact she has a choice in how she lives her own life. Mia’s a teen girl dealing with teen girl problems — boys, friends, family — and it so happens that leukemia throws her for a loop when she thinks she has those things under control. Because that’s how it works. In no way would I consider Tiffany Schmidt’s book a “cancer book.” I have no doubt Mia would feel the same way.

Hand Schmidt’s debut to fans of Jenny Han, particularly for the romantic elements, the strong and determined lead female character, and for the great writing (because the writing in Send Me A Sign — even though I haven’t spent a long time talking about it — is one of the book’s strengths). I think this book will appeal to fans of Sarah Dessen, as well as Siobhan Vivian.

Oh, and if you’re curious: Mia makes the right choice at the end of the book. I never flip to the end to find these things out, but I was so invested in the story I needed to know. The conclusion was beyond satisfying to my heart. I guess that’s a spoiler, isn’t it? Mia doesn’t die. She doesn’t need to to get us to pay attention though.

She’s a hell of a lot more interesting than that.

Review copy received from the publisher. Send Me A Sign will be available October 2. You will hear more about this book from the author here later on this year. Also, Tiffany is donating $1 to cancer charities for each copy of her book pre-ordered through the end of the month. You can read about why and order through her website.

I wanted to run lengthier reviews of each of these books, but because their themes are overlapping and tackled in such different ways, I thought it was more worthwhile to talk about them together. Both Skinny and My Big Fat Manifesto delve into gastric bypass surgery for teens — Cooner’s title exploring it from the first-hand experience and Vaught’s exploring it at a distance. 

Fifteen year old Ever is fat. Over 300 pounds fat. Everyone knows it. And the reason she is fat is because of losing her mother, combined with the new family acquired through her father’s relationship with a new woman (who brought children to the mix). She took up eating for comfort and as a way to grieve the losses and changes in her life.

It’s more than that, though. Ever’s struggling with an internal voice named Skinny which constantly reminds her she’s fat. That she’s not good enough. That she’ll never be good enough. It finally reaches a point where Ever can’t take it any longer, and she makes the decision to seek out gastric bypass as a means of combating her weight issue. Her dad and step mother are more than supportive of the decision, even if all three of them are worried about what the surgery and future consequences of that surgery may be.

Post-operation, Ever begins dropping weight immediately. It’s not necessarily easy adapting to the new lifestyle, but she’s doing what she has to in order to attain the body she’s hoped for. And bonus! Now that she’s losing weight, she’s catching the attention of not only a boy she’s always been interested in, but she’s also fitting in with the popular kids. They want to make her over, too, and help her become the gorgeous girl she’s always wanted to be.

This is a Cinderella story.

Skinny did not work for me on many levels. First, there is a problem when as readers, we’re asked to simply accept things as they are when those things are the crux of the problem. Ever is fat. She eats because she’s grieving. That’s just how it is. Except, we never actually see this happen in the story. We’re told that she’s a chronic over eater and she does so to comfort herself, but we never see it happen. Ever never tells us why she’s seeking food for comfort. She never gives us a reason to emotionally invest in her challenge and as readers, we’re so far removed from the struggle that there’s no reason to buy into it at all. It is what it is and nothing more.

More troubling, though, was there was no attempt at seeking alternate options for weight loss before the gastric bypass option occurred. There was discussion about things Ever had tried in the past — dieting, exercising — but never do readers see this happen. When Ever goes in for a consultation about bypass, there’s no discussion about seeing a nutritionist, about getting on a regiment of diet and exercise, of making true lifestyle changes. For all that her family pushed for her to change, there was no action on their part to support a change in lifestyle so that she could change. Instead, it’s immediately to surgery. Let’s remember that Ever is 15. That’s a hell of a solution for someone so young, particularly when the long-term effects of surgery like this aren’t clear. And Ever is still in the midst of puberty, too, so her body isn’t even fully developed. That the physician and surgeons don’t worry about this and neither does anyone else (save Ever’s friend who is pretty much a cardboard character throughout anyway) rubs me so wrong as a reader. It suggests this is the solution, rather than a final solution to turn to.

Cooner’s book is full of the stereotypes of fat people that bother me as a reader. Ever is defined as angry — by other people who see her as that way — and she’s given contradictory messages by friends and family. Her father loves her and wants her to lose weight, but he doesn’t actually help her. Her stepsister wants nothing to do with her until she loses weight and post-operation, they’re suddenly close. It’s when she loses that weight — when she’s almost regaled as a hero for having surgery to rid herself of her fat — that she becomes human to anyone else around her. When she becomes the hero of the story. When people open up about the horrible stereotypes they had about her fat body defining her. It comes too late for the reader, though, because Ever is nothing but the fat stereotype throughout the story. There’s not a payoff in the end when she’s thin and well-liked. And even Skinny, that voice in her head, agrees. Skinny reminds her that she’s still the same person she was when she was fat. Except now she’s not fat.

Unfortunately, that same person at 185 pounds is just as uninteresting, flat, and frustrating as she was at 300+ pounds. She’s still a fat stereotype, albeit dressed better because of her popular friends. And of course — spoiler — she “earns” the boyfriend reward.

Skinny was the most realistic aspect of the story, and I think readers will relate to that voice in their heads. However, the rest of the book fails to deliver. Ever is only ever in this to please everyone else, and the solution is far too easy. There’s not depth of character nor is there much story arc. Skinny doesn’t get across what it intended too because it relied too hard on social beliefs, rather than on true character motivations and beliefs. It’s too easy to accept things here simply because it’s what we’re told to accept in the world around us. As such, we lose sight of the character and connection readers should make to that character, whatever size she may be.

While reading Skinny, I was dying to read a book where the fat girl doesn’t hate herself. Where she’s okay with who she is and how she looks and forget what others think of her. That’s when I was directed to Susan Vaught’s My Big Fat Manifesto. I’m so glad this book landed in my hands because it was a breath of fresh air.

Jamie is a fat girl. She’s completely fine being that way. So fine, in fact, she chooses to write about her body and her life as a fat girl for the school’s newspaper. It’s sort of her way of working through her own feelings and a way for other people to understand that the way she looks isn’t a reflection of what she is at the core. Jamie is a girl after my own heart.

However, her life is far from perfect. Jamie is an insecure person, and it’s nothing to do with her weight. She’s insecure about her future, about what she was to pursue after high school (she wants to get into a tough university which is part of why she’s writing the column in the first place), and she’s insecure about her relationship with Burke.

Burke is himself obese, and as a means of trying to combat this in his life, he’s choosing to pursue gastric bypass surgery. This, of course, is not something Jamie would want to happen. Jamie is herself secure in her body and she’s secure with Burke and his body, too. Except — this isn’t Jamie’s choice. It’s Burke’s alone. And while he pursues this option, she’d finding herself questioning much about what this means for him, what it means for her, and what it means for their relationship in general. Burke’s not going to have a Cinderella transformation. He’s not doing this to gain popularity or status. He’s doing it so he can have a better shot at a healthy future when other means of weight loss have failed him.

Vaught handles the topic with sensitivity but she doesn’t shy away from graphic detail. Bypass surgery is far from pretty, and the consequences of the surgery include a lot of unsavory things. Burke experiences them, and through Jamie, we do, too. It’s through these moments where — despite feeling like she’s an expert on body image and body acceptance — Jamie really does learn what a body means and what the implications of being fat truly are. It’s here where she realizes that everyone accepts and rejects certain aspects of what their bodies are personally and that’s just what it is: personal. In other words, she can’t judge Burke for his decision to pursue surgery. What he chooses to do with his body and how he chooses to lose weight is something that impacts him, and it impacts him on the superficial, exterior level only. The same goes for her body and what she chooses to believe about it. In other words, as much as Jamie is wise in her columns about accepting and loving herself as a fat person, and as much as she preaches tolerance toward those of different shapes, it’s not until she’s faced with someone close to her not feeling the way she does that she realizes her words carry a hell of a lot more meaning to them.

My Big Fat Manifesto is empowering. Jamie is a fantastic character who starts the book strong, but ends it even stronger. This is a book about choices and about growth, about understanding and acceptance and tolerance. It’s also about love on a very personal level. Jamie is open about how having a fat body doesn’t limit her from doing anything, despite what other people think. She talks about things like sex pretty openly — just because a person is fat doesn’t mean they don’t have the same physical needs and or experience physical enjoyment the way anyone else may. She pushes back against the stereotypes that books like Skinny too readily embrace. There’s an entire passage where Jamie is confronted about being an angry girl because of her column. Jamie’s response is that she’s not at all angry. That she’s simply putting into words truths of her life. She’s fat. That’s all it is.

Even though we don’t experience gastric bypass first hand in this book through Burke, we do experience it through Jamie and that’s enough to give an idea of how huge an issue it is. It’s not an easy or light choice. The consequences are far reaching, and it’s not simply consequences of how much a person can or cannot eat anymore. Consequences revolve around body acceptance, tolerance, and appropriateness, too. I appreciate how this book doesn’t fall into a trap where Burke’s decision comes down to how other people view him; he doesn’t choose surgery to fit in. Rather, it’s about his health and his future. About how he needs to take charge of his life and decisions now, rather than put them off and suffer consequences other people in his life have. It’s about Burke’s needs and choice. Just like Jamie’s body tolerance and her embracing of her fatness are hers.

Vaught’s book and Simmone Howell’s Everything Beautiful are two stand outs when it comes to fat acceptance and tolerance. Both books feature girls who are overweight but don’t hate themselves because of it. They feature girls who are overweight but don’t let other people’s judgments change their perceptions of who they are at the heart. Do all books featuring fat people need to have this message? Absolutely not — it’s unrealistic. But there needs to be a balance between offering up stereotypes and conveniences, of showing an easy out and an easy way to be accepted socially, of playing into what society tells us is wrong and gross about one’s body with true portrayals of whole, thoughtful, and feeling characters. There needs to be arc to a story and an arc to a character. Not just an arc to a body.  

Skinny was received from the publisher and will be available October 1. My Big Fat Manifesto was picked up from the library and is available now. 

No one would deny that Butter is fat.

He wouldn’t argue against it either. Butter knows. He knows, too, that he’s an outcast at his school and even with his parents because of that not-so-little number on the scale. It’s impossible to be ignored when you’re the biggest kid in school, but being fat makes Butter invisible anyway.

Over the last year, though, Butter has developed a strong relationship with Anna, who is one of the most popular girls at school. Except, she doesn’t know it’s Butter with whom she’s developed this friendship/near romance. Their relationship is all online, and Butter goes by a nickname on the internet so Anna has no idea with whom she’s really communicating. It’s through the protection of the computer that Butter feels comfortable being himself and opening himself up to her. He has nothing to hide. At least emotionally.

After a series of events that prove to Butter how little he is to the rest of the student body — including Anna — he decides he’s going to make a change. See, it’s been hard for Butter to fit in and gain acceptance not just because of his size, but because of how he reacted around a group of popular boys in the past who taunted him because of his size. In hopes of retaliation and in hopes of fitting in, he’s going to eat himself to death online for everybody to watch.

But as the day draws closer to when he’s to perform his act, everyone wants to know if Butter will really go through with it or not. That’s when the real question emerges: what will killing himself prove, if anything? And will it get him the sort of acceptance he wants in those final days or will he be simply making himself a bigger target of torment than he already is? Will it make Anna accept him as Butter or will she continue pretending he isn’t the guy she talks to online?

Erin Jade Lange’s debut Butter is one of the best explorations of weight in YA I have ever read. Everything Butter experiences is painful, and he is completely aware of his own problem. Neither the character nor the story exploit the weight issue to make it a Weight Issue; rather, we’re allowed to experience humiliation and frustration right along with the main character, and we’re forced to see why he chooses to behave in the manner he does. This doesn’t excuse it nor does it make it more acceptable — the entire concept of live casting your death by eating in excess for audience viewing is horrific — but as readers, we understand the desperation Butter feels in wanting to be accepted for who he is. A fat kid. There aren’t cut and dry answers about what weight should or shouldn’t be in this story. Rather, we’re offered a character who is fat, and that physical attribute of him has become Who He Is, rather than any of his personality or heart.

The bigger issue undercutting all of the book is that of bullying, including online bullying. Although the bulk of Butter’s school experience has been one of mostly being ignored, that wasn’t always the case. When he stands up for himself and chooses he to go public with his eating-to-death plan, he’s suddenly finding himself gaining attention of the popular crowd. But it’s not necessarily because they want to befriend Butter. Rather, they’re subtly bullying him by forcing him outside of his comfort zone in a threatening, rather than supportive and encouraging, manner. They’re using Butter’s fearlessness toward death as their opportunity to get one last jab in at him, even if he’s not entirely aware that is the case. Then there’s Anna: despite learning the truth about the boy for whom she has fallen hard, she refuses to accept Butter as himself. She’s angry that he lied to her and pretended to be someone who he wasn’t.

Of course, he wasn’t doing that. At least, he doesn’t think that’s what he was doing.

What makes Butter stand out is that there are absolutely no clear cut good and bad sides in the story. While we’re sympathetic toward Butter and Anna, as well as even the popular boys and Butter’s former best friend Tucker, we can’t make solid decisions on whether they’re necessarily good characters or not. It’s also unclear whether or not they’re likable — as much as I wanted to like Butter, I found myself feeling much more sympathy for him that feeling like he was likable. But that doesn’t mean he was entirely unlikeable, either. Lang has created characters who fall into both categories and who make choices that fall into both categories, too. In doing so, the pacing of the story holds up, as does the tension. It’s never clear how things will play out because it’s never clear whether characters have the guts to go through with their plans. This has a great tempering of emotional highs with emotional lows. And of course it gets to the heart of the story, which is that no one is wholly who they act like and no one can ever truly know the whole of who we are. We all only share so much.

The knockout aspect of Butter was the voice — Lang nails it with Butter, and she’s not only able to successfully give us a great male narrator, but she does so without coming across as too emotional, despite the meaty topics at hand. Butter’s voice reminded me quite a bit of Jace’s voice in Swati Avasthi’s Split and even though they tackle different topics, this would make an excellent read alike to Avasthi’s book. Likewise, I think this book would have appeal to those who read and loved Simmone Howell’s Everything Beautiful or maybe even KL Going’s Fat Kid Rules the World. This book also reminded me quite a bit of KM Walton’s debut Cracked. Butter’s voice and experiences are going to resonate with many readers who themselves feel like outcasts or like they’re forgotten because of something out of their control. Likewise, the issue of bullying is timely and in particular, online bullying and the notion of online life and reputation are relevant and pertinent. While this book isn’t necessarily funny, Butter’s voice is thoughtful and the tough topics are handled in a way that won’t necessarily leave readers uncomfortable (though it will at times make them feel that way, it is not overwhelming or destructive to the narrative or the characters).

As much as I thought the characters in the story were well-developed and that the pacing and tension were on, I felt like the book became a bit message-y and heavy-handed at times and particularly at the end. It’s not cool to make fun of someone for their physical appearance, and it’s not cool to be a bully. It’s also not cool to pretend to be who you aren’t, and it’s not okay to give up everything when you have an opportunity to change it. I felt like some of those message-y aspects could have been pulled back a tiny bit because Butter’s voice and the story he lives through would make those things stand much stronger on their own. These didn’t ruin his voice or the story itself, but they didn’t allow them to shine with the intensity that they could have.

Lang’s writing in the book is great, and I am eager to see where she takes her sophomore novel — a book which will also tackle the issue of bullying. Butter is available today.

Review copy received from the publisher.