Zac And Mia
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4.6 • 5 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A moving story of love and hope found in the most unexpected of places
Zac is a soccer-playing farm boy. Mia is a gorgeous girl with an entourage of perfect friends. In the real world, these two seventeen-year-olds would have little to say to each other, but in the hospital, where both are undergoing treatment for cancer, the usual rules no longer apply. Before long, the messages they trade through a shared wall evolve into a bond that neither sees coming, a bond that endures after they are released from the hospital to their normal lives. But cancer has changed everything—there is no “normal” anymore—and the only constant is their ever-deepening need for each another.
Told from alternating perspectives, Zac and Mia is a funny and tender novel about two ordinary teenagers who find hope, love and courage in exceptional circumstances.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At nearly 18, Zac is too old for the pediatric oncology ward, but far younger than the rest of the patients in the adult ward. So when a teenage girl turns up next door, it's a big deal. Outside the hospital, beautiful Mia would never have noticed Zac, but not only does Zac know the ward, he also knows cancer's existential terrors and daily discomforts. The two start by tapping on their shared wall, move to Facebook conversations, and eventually meet. Aside from its Australian setting (Zac's family runs an olive farm/petting zoo that's conveniently on Mia's bus route when she runs away), this is familiar territory. Betts portrays cancer as hard, scary, and isolating, but beatable or at least bearable if one isn't facing it alone, and her depiction of a boy trying to hold onto normal life and a girl realizing she can't keep hers from changing has power. Mia's odds may be better than Zac's are (Zac knows: he's Googled it), but in the end, both are better off for having taken a chance on the other. Ages 14 up.
