Jase Ellison doesn’t remember having acute lymphocytic leukemia when he was three years old. His cancer diagnosis only enters his mind twice a year: once at his yearly checkup at the oncology clinic and one when he attends Camp Chemo in the summer. No one in his “real” life knows about his past, especially his friends at Atlanta West Prep. Mari Manos has never been able to hide her cancer … survivorship. She wakes every morning, grabs her pink forearm clip crutches, and starts her day. Mari loves Camp Chemo–where she’s developed a healthy crush on fellow camper Jase. At Camp, she knows that she’ll never get “the look” or have to explain her amputation to anyone. Jase wants to move on, to never reveal his past. But when Mari transfers to his school, he knows she could blow his cover. That’s the last thing he wants, but he also cannot ignore his attraction to her. Mari wants to be looked at like a girl, a person, and not only known for her disability. But how do you move on from cancer when the world won’t let you?
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This book tells a story of Mari and Jase whom I’ve met briefly in Brave Enough, and ever since then I’ve been wondering what their story was like. I was grateful to experience reading this book and to learn and find out what their story is. Let’s just say that I enjoyed reading their story.
There was a lot of things happening in this book. From Mari and Jase attended Camp Chemo to Jase pretended he didn’t know Mari to Jase slowly trying to mend things with Mari to them growing closer that their friendship turns into something more to Mari dealing with bullies to Jase standing up for not only Mari but also himself and so much more. A lot of things went unexpectedly which surprises me and I was actually fine with that many surprises, really intrigues me.
The story focuses on a lot of pressing and important matters such as the many type of cancer, the survivors journey, the ups and downs of friendship and relationship, the pros and cons of cancer treatment, verbal bullying that often happen in schools etc. This book doesn’t just tell a wonderful and heart-touching story, but it also educate its readers about cancer and how big it can affect one’s life. There are so many lessons that we can take and learn from this book.
Mari is a strong female protagonist and I really admired her strength in this one. She had to endured a lot in the story, for example like how the students and teachers around her treated her, especially those spoiled rich kids who verbally bullied her which angered me, and those teachers that thought she was the problem because she was using her crutches instead of wheelchairs and blamed her for making other students fell on the ground while the other students should’ve been more careful.
What I really hated seeing in this book was how the rich kids verbally bullied Mari. Words can hurt someone and they didn’t realize how much their words affected Mari, and despite having to hear it all, Mari still stood up for herself and doesn’t back down from her bullies. Even though she cried sometimes, that doesn’t mean she was weak, in fact it made her grow a lot stronger. I loved how Mari doesn’t really care what those kids thought of her, and how she was handling the whole debate about her cancer treatment professionally while those rich kids tried so hard to bring her down.
Jase on the other hand is the total opposite of Mari. He can fit in and look normal because his situation is a lot different than Mari. He does have a lot of friends and all of them doesn’t know that he was a cancer survivor so he wanted to keep it that way. Unlucky for him because the moment Mari stepped her foot into his school, a lot of students have been talking about cancer and Mari’s journey as a cancer survivor. That topic becomes an everyday topic and that made Jase feel unsettled because he’d been trying to avoid talking about it and pretended as if he didn’t know what cancer is.
I expected him to share his journey as a cancer survivor with his friends like ten chapters before the book ended, but he did it in the final chapter instead. He had a lot of thinking to do but I was so proud to see him being able to finally talk about his journey with cancer and how he survived it. It took a lot of courage for him to do that but at the end of the day, he was brave enough to share it without having to worry about his friends judging him or what they were thinking. He was being brave and that was enough for me to be proud of him.
Moving on to Jase and Mari’s relationship. I knew that they would eventually going to get together romantically, it was just a matter of time. I do enjoyed their friendship and how it was slowly evolving into a romantic relationship. They do have a great chemistry, and the emotional connection they shared is like no other. I liked seeing how Jase really cared about Mari and how he comforted her whenever she felt down due to Lindsay verbally bullied her. I was actually cheering up for Jase when he defended Mari in front of Lindsay. He did the right thing.
Finding Balance is about two cancer survivor kids trying to find balance in their lives. Jase and Mari had a lot things they need to do and they are trying to balance everything in their lives despite how tough it is for them. Their journey was beautiful with some emotional moments, and what they had to go through was very challenging for them and yet they survived. There are a lot of things we can learn from this book through the eyes of the main characters, and there are so many positive messages we can take from it. I really enjoyed reading Jase and Mari’s story, and learned about their journey as cancer survivors. As usual, Kati never fail to amazed me with her amazing storytelling skills.
Thank you to Netgalley and Flux Books for my eARC of Kati Gardner’s ‘Finding Balance’.
I was initially drawn to the book because when I was in school my close friend passed from Leukemia. I have also had family members these last couple of years fighting forms of Cancer and I welcomed any book that might give a perspective about this cruel disease that would help my children.
Finding Balance was everything I could have hoped for in a book that deals with topics that are often not in the forefront of any novels never mind those for a younger audience. I had moments of laughter, and moments were I cried; the emotional rollercoaster had me at every turn and I know without doubt I would and will read this tale again along with the first book by Kati Gardner.
It is an insightful read both during both the good moments and the bad and it was apparent that this story truly mattered to the author and that it was a true labour of love. The scenes at ‘Camp Chemo’ were wonderful and showed how anyone can feel more ‘themselves’ when surrounded by others who truly understand what they have gone through. I think all too often, childhood Cancer is shown about the fragility of the sufferer and not so much the survivor who simply wants to be who they are or where before they got sick. I couldn’t help but laugh at how our two main protagonists were your typical teenagers who had crushes on one another – especially how Jase doesn’t even register the fact Mari is an amputee, she is just his friend and her only have one leg doesn’t affect how he sees her. I confess that there were smiles and tears as it is abundantly clear that to him, she is still so beautiful to him – as it should be.
Although Finding Balance’s main characters are both Cancer survivors I liked how there was so much more to the story than just that. You saw how people judge others all too often by how someone looks than rather who they are; something we are all often guilty of doing.
It was interesting seeing Mari’s battle in regards to whether she should have another prosthetic leg or be as she is when we meet her using her hot pink crutches and having her old prosthetic as a ‘very expensive doorstop’. Her refusal to essentially make others more comfortable with her disability by going through the painful process to be fitted for a leg had me cheering her on. She is only sixteen but a true warrior and very comfortable with who she is and what she needs to make her life better. I found myself wanting to hug this fictional girl and cheer her on as she acknowledges how she is so much more than a leg that hasn’t been there longer than it was. Her vulnerabilities are obviously still there but she fights through them and is an excellent role model for anyone who finds themselves in that situation.
I felt for Jase whose demons linger in the back of his mind and make him reticent to be truthful to his friends. His determination to keep the two parts of his life separate from one another is a hard thing to do but also a very human thing when we’re afraid. His Cancer doesn’t so much haunt him but the cruelty of children who don’t fully understand, (thinking it is contagious for example). However, he does deserve everything he gets when he treats Mari the way he does and I can guarantee you will feel the same.
I am wary of ruining the story with too many spoilers, but I will say that if you want an emotional insightful and wonderful story of love, of life and the fragility of being human? Finding Balance is a must for your to be read pile. I am eager to read more from Kati Gardner.
2.5 stars.
I had high hopes about this story. A teenage amputee with a history of cancer? That’s not a normal character I read about, so I was definitely excited about that.
And Mari was amazing. She maturely accepts and deals with her disability and has adjusted well to having a single leg and walking with crutches. She thrives at her yearly summer camp for cancer survivors and has made lifelong friends there. One of them is Jase.
When she transfers to Jase’s fancy and expensive high school, she thinks she’ll have a built in friend to help her adapt. But N.O.P.E. Jase…Jason at school…hasn’t told any of his classmates about his cancer and doesn’t want anyone to know that part of his history. So he claims to have never met Mari on her first day of school.
Turns out Jase is a mean girl.
And the rest of the book is basically Jase being a dick and Mari accepting his apology. Over and over. By the end I didn’t feel that Jase was truly apologetic or had learned from his mistakes. That boy needs to develop some empathy.
All my problems with this book were Jase and his mean girl friends. Mari and her family were the only bright spot.
The start of the book has Mari and Jase at camp but it is too quick. Their camp relationship is rushed and I didn’t really get a feel for it. I loved Mari and her friends and family. How they each dealt with her challenges was very heartfelt. Her humor and resilience were inspiring. Even learned a little about prosthesis options. Jase or Jason on the other hand I could forgive once for his actions but to continue them even after all his promises, it was just too much. I couldn’t like him or want him to be with Mari. So the 4 star rating is all for Mari – she earned it.
So, I got this book from the publisher at the AASL convention in November 2019. Originally it was supposed to be published in May of 2020, but because of all the COVID-19 stuff, it got postponed until September. However I wanted to go ahead and get my review done while the story was fresh in my mind, and I’ll come back and revisit with a promo post probably in September.
Now, I haven’t read the first book in this series, Brave Enough, and I don’t know when or if I’ll get it read, although I am definitely intrigued now. I was told you didn’t have to read that book to understand and enjoy this one, and I’m guessing that is true, because I didn’t feel like anything was missing from the story.
This was a really emotional read, but so good. There are a lot of books about kids with cancer out there, but I feel this one had something unique, or at least not often seen. The main character, Mari, lost one of her legs due to cancer when she was younger. The other main character, Jase, had cancer when he was very young, so young he doesn’t really remember it. And he is able to hide it. In fact, even though every summer he’s gone to a camp for kids who have had or do have cancer, since middle school, when his friends got cruel and teased him about having cancer when they found out, he’s been able to hide it at his new school. He and Mari are great friends at camp, possibly even summer love interests. But since he wants that part of his life kept away from his new friends, even at his new private school, when Mari shows up, he is cruel to her, and does everything he can to make sure no one finds out.
I totally hate him for this at first. Even though it is soon apparent from how the girls in his crowd treat Mari when she arrives, that he probably isn’t wrong to be worried about it. Because wow, the things the girls say are so mean. I mean Mean Girl on steroids! Now Mari does make friends at her new school, and is able to ignore the mean girls, and even move past the friendship she thought she’d already have in place with Jase. But they end up going back and forth, as he can’t stay away from her because he really does like her. But he also refuses to come clean.
There’s so much more to this story than their romance though. A lot of things about having cancer that we don’t always get in YA books. How getting a prosthetic leg isn’t as straight-forward and easy as it might be thought. How maybe someone might not even want one. The fact about how people with those types of handicaps are considered to be such miracles when they do get a leg or arm and are able to “do so many things.” Not wanting to be in the spotlight as being inspirational, just wanting to be a normal teenager.
There were a lot of tears for me in this, but a lot of smiles and laughs at times too. It was a feel good story in the end, and I was able to read it in less than two days because it was so hard to put down. I’ll be looking into getting this for my school library when it gets published next fall.