Review: The Probability of Miracles by Wendy Wunder

Title: The Probability of Miracles
Author: Wendy Wunder
Publisher: Razorbill
Release date: December 8th 2011
Pages: 360
Genre: Contemporary YA
Source: Bought 
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Dry, sarcastic, sixteen-year-old Cam Cooper has spent the last seven years in and out hospitals. The last thing she wants to do in the short life she has left is move 1,500 miles away to Promise, Maine - a place known for the miraculous events that occur there. But it's undeniable that strange things happen in Promise: everlasting sunsets; purple dandelions; flamingoes in the frigid Atlantic; an elusive boy named Asher; and finally, a mysterious envelope containing a list of things for Cam to do before she dies. As Cam checks each item off the list, she finally learns to believe - in love, in herself, and even in miracles.

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I hate when this happens. When I read a book everyone loved and end up disappointed, feeling like the only person in the world that didn't end up falling head-over-heels in love with a book. And sadly, even though I really wanted to love it, that's what happened with The Probability of Miracles.

Objectively, I could see that a lot of aspects were very well-done. For example, sarcastic, cynic Cam is a character I could have loved; I can see how she appealed to a lot of readers. But I personally just never connected with her. Her cynicism didn't turn out to be the humorous, entertaining type I'd been hoping for; Cam is just hopeless in a very stoic way. While her personality is realistic, I just never grew to love her like I'd hoped I would.

I could also understand what a lot of people loved about the writing - there really are some beautiful gems in this book. But for the most part, those were hidden within a writing style that just didn't work for me. I'm not even sure why, but the style felt very all-over-the-place to me; it switches quickly from scene to scene, leaving me very disoriented. I often had no idea what was going on and had to check back where they were now, what was going on and when it had switched from where I thought they'd been. Whatever the reason, I felt very removed from the story, and I always had to force myself to keep reading, making The Probability of Miracles very hard for me to work my way through.

The secondary characters never really came to life for me. The cast is quite large, and it ended up being too large for me - I had trouble keeping track of who's who. Other than Perry, whom I loved, no one really stood out; none of them were memorable. Even the romance felt formularic to me; I never felt the connection between Asher and Cam.

Really, I think that's what it comes down to - The Probability of Miracles felt formularic to me. All the ingredients are there, but it didn't make me feel anything. It didn't make tear up once, and I'm usually the first to start crying at books and movies. I don't discourage you from giving it a try, since this book touched so many others, but The Probability of Miracles fell flat for me.