The Symptoms of My Insanity by Mindy Raf

Published April 18th 2013 by Dial Books for Young Readers When you’re a hypochondriac, there are a million different things that could be wrong with you, but for Izzy, focusing on what could be wrong might be keeping her from dealing with what’s really wrong. I almost raised my hand, but what would I say? “Mr. Bayer, may I please be excused? I’m not totally positive, but I think I might have cancer.” No way. Then everyone at school would know, and they would treat me differently, and I would be known as “Izzy, that poor girl who diagnosed herself with breast cancer during biology.” But Izzy’s sense of humor can only get her so far when suddenly her best friend appears to have undergone a personality transplant, her mother’s health takes a turn for the worse, and her beautiful maybe-boyfriend is going all hot and cold. Izzy thinks she’s preparing for the worst-case scenario, but when the worst-case scenario actually hits, it’s a different story altogether—and there’s no tidy list of symptoms to help her through the insanity.

Rating: 2/5

Review:

Honestly, I'm having trouble writing a review for this one.  Usually in my reviews, I try to say what I liked and disliked about the book.  For The Symptoms of My Insanity, I'm coming up blank.  Almost nothing about this book made an impression on me in any way.  The characters and the story were just bland.

The only think that did stand out to me about this book was the dialogue.  There were lots of ums, people trailing off in the middle of their sentences, getting interrupted, awkward small talk, and rambling.  These are things that happen regularly in everyday speech, but there's a reason they're not usually included in books.  It's frustrating to read this sort of unclear dialogue.

This book gets a low rating because of how unremarkable it was.  If you ask me in a year or so, I probably won't remember having read it at all.