I'm a firm believer that all people have a tiny bit of insanity in them - some just more than others. It's the people who appear totally sane that you really have to watch out for (I remember my friend's dad talking about how Tiger Woods was the only genuinely nice and well-rounded celebrity right before... exactly my point). So when I saw this novel, featuring a main character who not only knows she's insane, but tries to diagnose it? Yes please.

Izzy is a lot of things. She is sarcastic and witty. She is creative. But she is also introverted and closed off, side effects of being a hypochondriac. She is always calculating not only what could go wrong, but what is wrong, and it focuses her energy internally, not allowing her to move on or break from her shell. Her instinct isn't to fix or cure, but to diagnose and obsess. When life starts going topsy turvy, she must confront all those fears she hides behind labels and walk unprotected into the real world.

There was really only one main issue I took with this novel. A lot of the plot and dialogue revolved around Izzy being made fun of having big boobs (or breasts if we're being technical). I usually stay away from such things here on this blog, but if you've seen me in person, I can definitely relate. But no one , especially boys, are mean because of that. Sure I've gotten jokes, but good natured. Izzy would not have been terrorized for such a feature. I just could not wrap my head around that, and it took me a while to let go of what I thought should happen and just go with the reality the novel was presenting. Then again, if you're not graced/cursed on your top half, this probably won't bother you at all.

Ignoring that, I really enjoyed the story. Izzy was a fun character to get to know, and the author is great with funny one-liners. One of my favorite aspects is that the plot was not what I was expecting it to be. Like the synopsis says above, "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." There are so many different facets to this story, and I felt like I was really getting a feel for the whole of Izzy's character. With so many stories you get to see how one thing affects a characters, or a group of characters, but when a character like Izzy is battling so many things at once, you get to see how she deals - you get to see who she is.

So yes, I have my criticisms, but I would never take back reading this one. I really enjoyed it. ( )

I found myself describing this book to friends while I was reading it. Conversations went like this:

Me: I'm reading this super fun book!
Friend: Oooooh!
Me: It's this book about this girl who is an artist and there's a boy she likes and he seems too good to be true and then there's the fact that she has pretty intense hypochondria and her mom has this really weird cancer and --
Friend: I thought you said it was fun?
Me: Oh, yeah, I know all this serious stuff is, like, tragic, but, I swear, it's HILARIOUS.

So that's the lowdown. THE SYMPTOMS OF MY INSANITY by Mindy Raf is sneaky. With all the awful stuff going on in the protagonist, Izzy's, life, she has this fantastic, snarky attitude that manages to find these sweet silver linings. I loved hearing about her art portfolio. I loved watching her confront the issues in her relationship with her sister. I loved her reactions to her overbearing BFF who signed her up to be an assistant director of the musical, even though she's on superdeadline with her art AND taking care of her sick mom. And I loved how much Izzy knows she's got a problem with this hypochondria thing and manages to make fun of herself even though she's seriously concerned she's probably dying of who knows what.

There's also some serious high school issues going on that are SUPER relevant to these oh-so-digital times we're living in, but I can hardly reveal those without spoiling. So, you know, read the book and find out! You'll be glad you did.

I highly recommend THE SYMPTOMS OF MY INSANITY to fans of John Green, David Levithan's humorous work (like his collaborations with Rachel Cohn), and Lauren Myracle. It's a fantastic debut, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of her work. ( )

This book made me angry--Izzy made me angry; the boys made me angry; Jenna, too. I just want to shake them and say wth is wrong with you?? (for a number of different reasons) So that kind of overshadowed other virtues of the book. It was funny, and all of Raf's depictions of the awkwardness and uncomfortableness of adolescence were great, but then...!!! and then it's all solved by some female "I Am Spartacus" moment. However nice that cliche may have managed to be, it wasn't enough to make up for everything else. ( )

Izzy is an average girl with an average life and above-average curves. She’s also a bit of a hypochondriac. When she’s not dodging the boys ogling her ample bosom, or working on her art portfolio, she scours the internet for possible explanations for a number of ailments she fears may be affecting her. A lot of this stems from the fact that her beautiful, perfect mother is suffering from stomach cancer. If it could happen to her, it could happen to anyone.

The only things that keep Izzy kind of sane are her sense of humor, her best friend and hot guy Blake who has recently shown an interest in her and her art. But when things with the bestie and Blake fall apart and her mother’s health takes a turn for the worst, it’s all Izzy can do to keep herself from unraveling.

As far as the characters in the book go, I thought they were all fairly well drawn and interesting. I really liked Izzy. She’s self-conscious, a little self-deprecating and she wants to please everyone. I saw a lot of myself in her. I know what it’s like to want to help others, and I often put my personal needs aside to make sure everyone else’s are taken care of. I really liked her voice and I rooted for her, despite her being pretty naive and a little manic.

The rest of the characters all serve a purpose to the overall story, though, at times, I felt some of them could have been done away with. I just felt there was A LOT going on and the plot kind of got heavy with all of these tragedies. Had some of the storylines been reduced, I think some of these characters could have been cut without affecting the point of the story.

Ms. Raf has a great sense of humor and she perfectly captures Izzy’s voice. I knew her, I could relate to her and I felt for her. As I said before, I think the plot could have used some tightening. I got that the author was trying to show how Izzy put everyone’s needs before her own, but after a while it got a little too overwhelming. I think the most important part of the story was for Izzy to see that she was important, and that she was fine just the way she was and that sometimes we have to take care of ourselves. I loved the relationship she had with her mother and her sister. It was far from perfect, but her mother’s health problems added another dimension to it. I would have been perfectly okay if this had been the focus of the story and the issues with her BFF and Blake had been tossed out. They didn’t really add anything to the overall story.

Despite the weighed down plot, I did enjoy this book and a lot of it had to do with Izzy. She is an admirable and unforgettable character and for that alone, I would recommend this. ( )

Yet again, my strong desire for a book stemmed from the awesome cover (not the final cover shown above) more than the blurb. Sure, the blurb is funny and all, but that's not what really raised my interest. This turns out to be yet another reminder that I should probably stop seeking out books that I wasn't especially interested in before I saw the cover. Though I didn't precisely dislike The Symptoms of My Insanity and some of it was quite humorous, I had a lot of issues with it as well.

What Mindy Raf does best are the funny, awkward scenes, and those are where she comes closest to capturing teenage life. The horrors of getting fitted for a bra, the discomfort with you body, and getting your long hair stuck on someone's glasses, prolonging an already tense moment. Those things work well, and Raf made me chuckle a handful of times. These small moments, the teasing and the day-to-day stuff are the aspects of The Symptoms of My Insanity that really worked.

For the most part, I feel like this novel couldn't decide whether to be serious or funny, and often ends up being vaguely disquieting, as the lighthearted tone jars with the serious subject matter. Mindy Raf attempts to tackle cancer, sexual harassment, friendship, and slut-shaming, all while keeping things funny, and the darker subjects do not get the respect they deserve.

Take, for example, Izzy's hypochondria, which she develops as a coping mechanism for her mother's slow but fatal cancer. Izzy started out researching her mother's disease, and gradually became a bit addicted to an online web diagnosis site, paranoid that every sniffle or stomach ache is an omen of disaster. Sure, hypochondria can be rife with humor, and Izzy's development of it in correlation to her mother's illness is convincing. What is less convincing is the way that, once a few jokes have been told at her expense and her hypochondria has been pointed out to her by more than one person, poof, it disappears. Awareness of a problem does not immediately conquer it.

Then there's Izzy's mother, who I suppose I ought to be sympathizing with, since she's dying a slow death from cancer. However, she is enormously hard to like, since she tears down Izzy's self-esteem left and right. Izzy's body issues mostly come from her mother, who suspects her of being a lesbian if she wears loose clothes and accuses her of being inappropriate if she wears anything tight. Apparently, if a girl has large breasts, wearing anything form-fitting or remotely low cut is inappropriate. Way to make her feel like her body is disgusting. Yes, Izzy's mom learns lessons about this in the long run, but, again, I felt like the denouement was rushed, and a bit unsatisfying, since it came basically two pages from the end after hundreds of pages of narrow-minded vitriol.

Most upsetting by far, though, is the plot line involving sexual harassment. Izzy ends up in a compromising position with a boy, very much against her will. Despite the fact that he and his friends have similarly harassed two other girls, her friends, Izzy doesn't report him or do anything other than give him the cold shoulder. Izzy and her friends are just sending them off to hurt other girls, because, if they hadn't learned their lessons hurting the two friends, they certainly won't have learned it now.

Along this vein, I don't think the female friendships were handled well. Jenna and Izzy are supposedly best friends, but neither one seems to care for the other at all. Jenna withholds information that could help Izzy avoid pain, all because Jenna felt neglected by Izzy over the summer. Now, I get feeling neglected, but the reason Izzy was so busy was taking care of her mother who was going through cancer treatments, so how about a little leeway. Yes, Izzy could have been more thoughtful of her best friend, but she also didn't know anything was happening. Of course, once Izzy learns what Jenna's issues were, she still doesn't inquire or support Jenna, so there's that. Meredith, who neither liked much at the outset, proved a much better friend to both, even they judged her unfairly.

The language is a bit stilted, and rarely does Izzy really coalesce into a character I had a strong handle on. Her personality doesn't seem particularly set in stone yet, and, if I were to describe her in one word, that word would be naive. So many things are going on that should be obvious to Izzy, like the issues with her crush or Jenna. I called what was up with both of them in their earliest scenes, but Izzy was completely shocked to figure out the truth hundreds of pages later. For all that she's concerned about her mom's health, that, too, takes her time actually believing that she's having health problems, despite the really obvious evidence and her obsession with all things medical.

Izzy's burgeoning healthy romance I did like. In fact, for once, I am wishing for more romance, rather than having that as the weak point in a novel. The scenes in which Izzy speaks with the boy are the ones where the dialog feels most natural, even in the way they end up saying the wrong things and fighting. They banter and have things in common the way that Izzy and the rest of her friends and family do not really seem to. Overall, there was an authenticity of character and emotion that was lacking.

I realize this has turned into a rant, but I did like parts of this novel quite a bit, and I do envision a good future for Raf as a writer. The humor is well done in places, and the tougher subjects show promise. The Symptoms of My Insanity tries to do too much and ends up not quite satisfying overall. Though I didn't end up loving this, I will be open to trying Raf's sophomore novel. ( )