The Probability of Miracles (review)

"So the cancer is everywhere. Pretty much. Nothing's changed." That's the news that Cam must break about her own prognosis, after years of fighting neuroblastoma, to her fiercely protective mother. Her mother, seeking one final chance at a cure, decides it's time to leave Florida and Disneyworld (where Cam and her family have always worked) to travel to Promise, Maine, a village that's supposed to be magical. The trip doesn't start out so magically—Cam quarrels with Lila, her best friend and fellow terminal cancer patient, along the way—but Promise turns out to be full of surprises. Cam begins to feel better, make friends, even toy with going to Harvard in the fall; more importantly, she falls in love with Asher, a handsome local guy. Wunder has a fresh, funny, and rueful voice; half-Samoan Cam, with her expert hula dancing and Disney-reactive cynicism ("Magic, Cam knew from a lifetime of working for the Mouse, was a privilege and not a right"), is an original and memorable character. In contrast to Jenny Downham's savagely sad Before I Die (BCCB 10/07), this takes the edge off of the realism with the fanciful possibilities of Promise; the suggestion that the slightly Brigadoon-esque locale might actually have cured Cam hangs tantalizingly over the story. Even under the touches of near-fantasy (including a logistically miraculous trip back to Disneyworld for Cam and her new Maine friends), though, there are flashes of the reality of Cam's situation and just how hard it is on her family. Some readers prefer a little whimsy and bittersweet philosophy to tearjerking, and the story of Cam's final summer will be just what they're looking for.