Book Blurb:
The youngest doctor in America, an Indian-American teen makes her rounds―and falls head over heels―in the contemporary romantic comedy Symptoms of a Heartbreak.
Fresh from med school, sixteen-year-old medical prodigy Saira arrives for her first day at her new job: treating children with cancer. She’s always had to balance family and friendships with her celebrity as the Girl Genius―but she’s never had to prove herself to skeptical adult co-workers while adjusting to real life-and-death stakes. And working in the same hospital as her mother certainly isn’t making things any easier.
But life gets complicated when Saira finds herself falling in love with a patient: a cute teen boy who’s been diagnosed with cancer. And when she risks her brand new career to try to improve his chances, it could cost her everything.
It turns out “heartbreak” is the one thing she still doesn’t know how to treat.
In her solo debut, Sona Charaipotra brings us a compelling #ownvoices protagonist who’s not afraid to chase what she wants. Symptoms of a Heartbreak goes from romantic comedy highs to tearjerker lows and is the ultimate cure-all for young adult readers needing an infusion of something heartfelt.
Find out more about the book on Goodreads
My Review:
3 Out Of 5 Stars
Genre: Romance, Teen--
Unfortunately I could not connect to this book. I liked all the pieces- the idea of a teen doctor, medical jargon, cancer research, sick kids, forbidden romance and teen drama- but it did not feel like it came together the way I was hoping it would. Also, everywhere this book pops up it is listed as a romantic comedy and I strongly disagree with that labeling. There was zero comedy in the story, dealing with the issues of illness and death and forgiveness as well as the angst of not fitting in and the drama of realizing who you are as a person and what you want. And the romance was pretty minor- the love interest is introduced early on, but they don't really end up having any sort of relationship until the last third of the book (the main character is already in a relationship from the beginning, even if it is a fake relationship, but to everyone else it is real). I think this would be better classified as a coming of age/medical drama than anything else, but that is just my opinion.
At least a third of the book focused on food, be it cooking, eating, making videos or just talking about food in general. It seemed a little off topic for the story and completely distracted me from the actual point of the plot. But it did make me super hungry for some delicious Indian cuisine and now I might be mildly obsessed with chai.
Overall I thought there were some great elements to the story, I just could not connect to Saira since she was pretty emotionally disconnected. She was really stubborn even at the detriment of her job/people's lives and then overly confident in her skills but I kept having to tell myself she was only 16 and needed to mature emotionally. She was in an important job but in the mindset of an argumentative teen and I wanted to shake her a little. I found the cultural elements really interesting (even though I had to look up most all of the references in the book) and I would love to read about some more Indian main characters doing their thing.
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