The Probability of Miracles

Gr 9 Up—High school senior Cam needs a miracle. She has been battling cancer for seven years and learns during spring semester that there is nothing left to do—no treatment is going to help. Not willing to admit defeat, Cam's mother drags her and her sister to Promise, ME, for the summer. Miracles are supposedly regular occurrences in the town, according to her mother's friend from yoga. Cynical, sarcastic, matter-of-fact Cam is not excited about leaving Florida and Disney World where her family has been involved in the entertainment business, performing nightly Samoan-heritage dances. But she goes along to humor her mother, and on the way there visits her friend Lily, a cancer-patient comrade whom she's known for years. Miracles or not, Cam really is dying. Nonetheless, during the summer she works as a vet's assistant, steals a donkey, meets lovely Asher, and manages to accomplish everything on her Flamingo List of the things she wants to do before she dies, which include cow-tipping, losing her virginity, and having an awkward moment with her best friend's boyfriend, among other things. This is not your typical teenage fatal disease, let's-make-the-most-of-my-last-summer novel. Rather it is a witty, clever, meaningful, kind of kooky life-sometimes-stinks-but-it's-all-we-have tour de force.—Ragan O'Malley, Saint Ann's School, Brooklyn, NY