REVIEW – ALL ABOUT MIA by Lisa Williamson

This is my first novel from Miss Williamson, and although my students keep telling me to read The Art of Being Normal I never really got round to it if I’m honest. When I saw this coming out, I knew it was a book that I had to get, I don’t know what it was about it but it was calling to me. All About Mia is just such a real, raw and a genuine joy to read. I look forward to meeting Lisa in the next couple of weeks.

Being a Campbell-Richardson is nothing short of being exhausting especially for Mia. Grace, the eldest is the first born, A-student to go to university. Audrey, the youngest, is set for Gold, training to swim for Olympics and champion of the pool at such a young age. And Mia, well she’s the middle sister, she doesn’t have a thing, she’s the disappointment, she getting through college with a sticker on her saying ‘Failing Campbell-Richardson’. That’s the brutality of it really. That’s Mia’s life. It’s not until, the star of the family comes home early with her boyfriend with a bun in the oven… at 19 years old…..at the point of her career, you would really think this would ruin her name wouldn’t you? That’s what Mia would think, but to her disgust, everyone is just completely over the moon and that just makes it a whole lot worse for her.

I adored Mia’s character, she’s completely off the rails, ha. You couldn’t help but not smile, laugh, occasionally cringe or at times think, ‘Oh Mia, whhhhhhyyyyyy’. But truth be told you can totally relate to it in some way, shape or form. I feel for Mia, I can understand her rebellious nature and her jelousy that it borders pure hatred at some point towards to her sister Grace. That’s not surprising really. She adores her little sister, she’s trying to be the bigger sister to Audrey but she doesn’t want to be like her big sister, Grace either. I think she tries to act up as the middle sister, but it always backfires on her. Her parents are no better, my god did I feel very antagonistic toward them. Seriously, they didn’t help Mia, they are all about Audrey and Grace. They were belittling her at every point, they didn’t consider her opinion or just her side for once. It was frustrating and this is where I found I related with this novel.

Miss Williamson took a very realistic approach to society nowadays. There’s a lot of pressure on teenagers. From a librarian’s point of view, I see the stress they go through, 5 years of studying for realistically 1 hour exam for each of their subjects. But I digress, what I mean is that the weight of their future on girls is unimaginable but we’ve all been through it, or going through it. Does it get easier? No and society isn’t helping with that. Relationships and friendships will always be effected by it for better or for worse. We have to work harder, be a role model, we have an expectation, and Audrey and Grace are the epitome of this. Well Audrey more so, she has to go to training at half 5 every morning, her passion is in the pool but when she’s out of it, she just like any other teenager, struggling to get through the rest of her life.

For Mia however, it’s even harder because her sisters have a ‘thing’, Mia doesn’t know what that is, she 16 years old, life isn’t given to you on a platter straight away, she will find her thing in her own time. But everyone is different. Mia needs to be given a chance, she needs some time with her parents, to actually think ‘you have me too, I need you guidance as well.’ I think that what lead to her very colourful nature. Life is like a jigsaw puzzle, just like the cover. Pieces will fit together in it’s own time. But don’t give up, continue your passions even if it doesn’t lead you down the path you thought you would. I think that’s the message of the book but also from me too.

All About Mia, is a perfectly imperfect novel on self discovery and the reality of being a teenage girl. Mia embodies an imperfect nature to and perfectly normal part of society. Sometimes we all need a bit of our time, we should have a All About…[insert name] to figure life out. It’s where our most valued perception of us as individuals come from.

Rating – 5