The book was okay, I felt like I couldn't get through it because the characters annoyed me but I finished it. The story was relatable and I was empathetic towards some of the characters. I

Was captivated! Loved this story and will recommend for school library and to classroom teachers. A real winner - I loved it and it made me want to hear more from J Gold

Thank you very much for allowing me to read this title; I am trying to read as widely as possible ahead of the Carnegie/Greenaway nominations and awards for 2018 and your help is much appreciated.
As a Carnegie/Greenaway judge, I'm not allowed to comment about my opinions on specific titles so I can't offer an individual review on any title as I stated on my profile.

I received this ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Quite honestly, this book filled me with so much rage and anger that I finished it just to make sure my rants would work with the entirety of the book.

I think it has multiple problems most of which stem from the fact that the characters in the book are self-centered, self-absorbed, arrogant, narrow-minded, ignorant, assholes. Also, the Students Without Borders program as presented here makes little sense and I'm surprised they haven't been sued and shuttered years ago.

The narrative of the book goes back and forth between the present and the past. The past deals with Cat's mom's cancer, her eventual death, and how everything has fallen apart for the family. The present deals with Cat doing a Students without Borders program to a madeup country in South America.

Why is this organization sending people currently in college and recent HIGH SCHOOL graduates to a madeup county that seems to be the equivalent of El Salvador, Columbia, CAR, and South Sudan. A military dictatorship killing political prisoners where drug cartels have run rampant and the younger civilians are getting more and more radicalized and it's on the brink of collapse. No seriously, I am legit curious. These aren't skilled professionals who would be actually helpful in this type of place, ie MSF/DWB, Red Cross, EWB, civil engineers, journalists, etc...The infirmary in the local village doesn't have a doctor, how is sending a group of kids, none whom seem to be remotely interested in the medical field helpful to their infirmary? None of them seem to be interested in any aspect of being there. Dig a well? Complain. Dig a latrine? Complain. Why burden a village that is already dealing with everything falling apart with a bunch of kids who don't know anything, need to be trained, and will then leave in a few weeks with a bunch of new kids coming in? How does that help? Seriously. In real life, groups that send volunteers to this sort of situation are very selective of the people they send. Not just psychologically but physically and emotionally. If you're not going to cause a net positive effect, then you're not going. If you don't want to be there for anything aside from from helping the cause, you will not be going. They will make sure of that. The fact that one of the characters had IBS, knew it was a problem, knew it would be a big problem during her stay, and had a diarrhea attack during a gunfight? That's something they'd weed out.

On top of that, the people on site in charge also seem to be younger people padding resumes rotating in and out. The main characters don't really have any authority figure making sure things are getting done. And the one time they did have one, the authority figure had no clue how do be a manager and lost complete control of the situation. The site manager is a complete joke. There is no one really on-site to ensure things go smoothly. Since everyone there is basically there for themselves, nothing really helps the locals in the long run. This is not how NGOs or any type of volunteer abroad program is supposed to work. [ One of the characters is killed by members of a cartel. She previously had such a dissociative episode where she almost killed someone with her shovel due to the gunfight going on. When she's sent back to the EXACT same spot later on, some more men with guns come by and she won't stop screaming. They shoot her to keep her quiet and she ends up dying. There are so many things wrong here that I won't even deal with it. But come on. (hide spoiler)]

Every single one of the main characters has used the SWB program to get away from their life issues in some weird attempt to "find themselves". They picked their specific country for reasons such as "it needed the least shots", it was something that could be done on a character's mother's 60th birthday so she could make them feel bad by not being there, it was the only country that had availability left. Well. Fanfukingtastic. And throughout their entire time there, they still continue to bitch about their own lives. Your country has basically fallen apart? Too bad, listen to my first world problem. Everyone around us has lost everything? Let's argue over who has wealthier parents. Your dad was executed in a show of political power and your mom is still a political prisoner of this brutal dictator? My mom died of cancer so I am the authority of death and your reaction to it. A girl is super Christian as a way to cope with her past traumas? Screw her, atheism all the way. What the hell? There is some real "Ugly American"(plus Canada for the Canadian character) going on here.

Aside from providing an extra body to do grunt work, these kids are not helping the nearby village. The Asian-Jewish girl with the overbearing parents cliche who needs to go to med school kills chickens everyday. The super Christian cliche seems to have been digging the same well for weeks. The gay super rich guy with daddy issues cliche is...browsing the web and doing some sort of social media thing. The recently graduated from high school main character who just lost her mom to cancer is helping out in the infirmary manned by someone who doesn't have a medical degree. All of them come in with some sort of superior America/Canada type thing. One of the first scenes in the country is someone talking about how everything is awful and part of it is due to the fact that it's a 3rd world country. This is from a character who has been there for awhile. No, you moron. Not only have I also gone to 3rd world countries in South America, I lived in 3rd world countries for med school. The problems you're seeing and experiencing aren't from the fact that you're in a 3rd world country, it's because you're in a war-torn military dictatorship that's on the verge of collapse. The hell is wrong with you?

My next topic of rage. The hell was going on with the mental illness issues? The last chapter is sort of an olive branch, hey, not all the help available is bad type thing. But it's a long road of "MEDICATION IS AWFUL" "PSYCHIATRISTS ARE HACKS" "TEENAGERS KNOW BETTER" "DEPRESSION IS JUST PEOPLE FEELING SAD" to get there. And the olive branch ending doesn't really acknowledge the terribleness of the previous thoughts on the matter. It's more "the younger people in the field know better" and really "HACKS EVERYWHERE". There was a debate in Cat's English class that basically landed on two sides:
1) All mental illness mean that you are crazy and need to be medicated.
2) Mental illness is just an emotional thing that people need to deal with. Medication is just something that are being forced on people unnecessarily.
Jennifer Gold, you have a degree in psychology, law, and public health. What exactly is the message you're trying to get across?

There's a relationship between Cat and Rafael, basically a local turning into a militant who is trying to get his village into cartel business to make money. There's a point where all the other people in her group are telling her "THIS IS A BAD IDEA WHAT ARE YOU DOING", and she goes, "well he was nice to me why do I care about his politics". She considers staying in the country with him at his request so they can do the cartel stuff together and she can help run the infirmary. The political commentary is hamfisted beyond belief. And then their relationship turns into a "I have a dead parent but don't know how to cope" club.

We need to talk about the cancer chapters. They're actually well done. Except you know you're being emotionally manipulated by it for the SWB chapters to work. But because those chapters inherently don't work, the cancer chapters come off as "cancer tragedy porn". You only deal with her family during the big cancer events. And each cancer event is perfectly time in the book to make the greatest impact. Since you can see right through to what the author is doing, as a reader, it's less emotional and more irritating.

I may have a strong disliking for this book. However, yeah, I can kind of see it doing well with the John Green crowd if they're ok with reading a lesser variation of something he'd write. 0.5/5 stars rounds to 1. It's at least coherent.