'If she dies I'll die' are the words fifteen-year-old Mia Pearlman writes in her journal the night her mother is diagnosed with cancer. Twelve days later Mia's mother is dead and Mia her older sister and their father must find a way to live on in the face of sudden unfathomable loss. Cures For He... more

'If she dies I'll die' are the words fifteen-year-old Mia Pearlman writes in her journal the night her mother is diagnosed with cancer. Twelve days later Mia's mother is dead and Mia her older sister and their father must find a way to live on in the face of sudden unfathomable loss. Cures For Heartbreak has it all: humor sadness love laughs and embarrasing firsts. There are so many things I loved about this novel. Mia is a great true-to-life character. Whether she's resorted to bringing out all her stuffed animals from the closet to give her comfort to her first date to her obsession with romance novels to her first experiences loving a boy to her fears about her father's health to her worries about normal teenage life...it's all in the details. And the details are here. I was always daydreaming getting a crush on some guy. Unrequited or not during even the most awful day a crush could change everything--it could make you forget the two classes you failed last semester and the general overall suckiness of your life. A crush removed the world at least for a little while (139). It was a romance novel entitled Larissa's Love Royale which I'd bought in the gift shop. It wasn't one of those romances with a subtle cover that try to pass themselves off as ordinary books either. No. This was all luscious bosom gold embossed letters and tanned male chestage set on a Renaissance pirate ship (109) In romance novels this would change everything. A hand holding on page fifteen and you knew for certain no matter what that the couple would end up together that not even 350 pages of pirates wars family deception or evil twins could keep them apart. That's what I liked about those books. I wanted to believe when I read them that that kind of love was possible and real that it truly existed (217). Part of me knew that it was unrealistic to hope for something to transform our brief meeting into some whirlwind of eternal devotion...I wasn't sure what I'd do if I didn't have Richard to think about. Even if it was unrealistic for us to be together now what was to stop us from connecting in the future like the characters in a romance novel meeting on page two and again on page two hundred? I could see Richard and myself at more appropriate ages...me having graduated from college in a job (anything but social worker) until some minor incident--a friend's baby a sprained wrist--took me to the hospital. Years would have passed--no matter. He'd have been through girlfriends many of them but never married. In hours it would happen as we'd always known it would: we'd kiss outside the hospital a deep shocking kiss and the other doctors the passengers in traffic the visitors the social workers--the whole world--would stop and stare in surprise(61-62).