All About Mia by Lisa Williamson

I struggled so much with this book. About halfways I almost gave it up since I just couldn’t get to like the main character. At all. But I’m glad I kept on reading, as the book got better in the end.

Mia is the middle sister of three, where older sister Grace is being absolutely flawless (straight As, beautiful, kind and with the perfect boyfriend) and younger sister Audrey is a future Olympic swimming champion (and such a sweetheart). Mia, on the contrary, is wild, daring, shallow and selfish, failing at school and drinking and partying too much.

In a way, it was very refreshing with a completely flawed main character, but the down-side was that it took me almost to the very end until I could even stand her… There were so many times I wanted to shake her and tell her to get her s**t together and stop being so selfish and reckless. I can understand why she would feel ignored or judged, but for me it was no excuse for her behavior. Especially the way she treated her friends, never caring about their feelings. It’s okay to make mistakes and stupid decisions, that’s part of growing up, but the problem in this book was that Mia didn’t seem to learn anything from her mistakes. She just blamed anyone else for them.

What I did like about this book already from the start though was the family dynamics and Mia’s sisters and parents. They were all so sweet and kind and loveable. Which made me worry that Mia would manage to destroy the family ties, especially to do something really mean and stupid that would ruin her sister’s relationship with Sam. So it was an anxious read… But after about chapter 34 or so, the story got so much better and I’m happy to say that Mia did step up and take responsibility for her actions eventually.

Find out more about the book and the author here: Lisa Williamson