Review: Symptoms of a Heart Break by Sona Charaipotra

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.

3 Stars

(I was provided a copy of the book by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review)

16 year old Saira is the Girl Genius. She was in college by age 12 and by 16 has finished medical school and is a hospital resident in the children’s oncology ward, and she’s off to a rough start. She’s late her first day, her supervisor seems to hate her, and she’s beginning to develop a relationship with one of her patients.

I liked this book. I liked learning about Saira, her culture, and her family. The descriptions of food were divine! Seeing the family interact at pizza hut did a great job of painting a picture of the family dynamic quickly and easily. Although a clear picture of Saira’s family was painted for us, I wish we’d had more intimate moments with Saira and her family.

With regards to Saira’s “friends”, they were hard to read about. Saira has spent her whole life working hard toward her goals. She chose to skip high school and the socialization it teaches, she chose to spend most of her time with her family watching Bollywood movies, and of the kids she knew before she joined the gifted program, she chose to only retain two friendships, Vish and Lizzie. While I hated that Vish put Saira into a position where she was forced to life for him every day, I thought he was a great character, I don’t think we saw enough of Lizzie though. When Lizzie and Saira got into a fight, I felt like I was supposed to have some sympathy for Lizzie but I didn’t. I don’t know if it was because her character wasn’t developed enough, or what, but I didn’t feel much.

Saira’s coworkers were full of surprises, and by coworkers I mean Jose, he was my favorite character in the book. I liked Saira’s interactions with her patients and their families and although I feel like everything happened very quickly. It feels like Saira met with each patron maybe 4 times. I just didn’t feel for them the way I think I should have.

Reading this book was interesting because I thought I was going to be reading a book about doctor who happened to be a teen genius, but I think I read about a teen who happened to be a genius and a doctor.