Book Review: Vacation Fever by Marjorie Sharmat

Vacation Fever by Marjorie Sharmat is a young adult romance novel originally published in 1984, sometimes under the pseudonym Wendy Andrews. The story begins with seventeen-year-old Mia packing for vacation with her parents, fifteen-year-old brother Ted, and eleven-year-old sister Heidi. Although Mia's best friend insists vacations are the perfect place to meet guys, Mia isn't exactly thrilled about spending so much time with her family. Follow Mia on her journey and mishaps.

This is a novel that I received as a birthday gift from a friend when I was in middle school. I had never heard of it, but it sounded promising. I remember thinking it was just okay at the time, but since it's been years, I decided to reread it as part of my journey to relive my childhood through books. The story quickly came back to me as I made my way through the book.

It was a really fun read, even though it didn't have much depth or character development. One thing I did appreciate was how the story showed that despite Mia and her siblings constantly clashing at home, they were still there for each other when it mattered most. Mia also comes to realize that her parents weren't trying to ruin her life or punish her with the trip, and by the end, she was genuinely appreciative of the experience.

That being said, parts of the plot felt a little far-fetched, especially Mia's parents agreeing to meet up with the Guest family throughout their trip to Dallas. Another unrealistic element was that they seemingly had no real plan for where to stop or sightsee on the way to Mia's aunt and uncle's house and instead just decided everything on the spur of the moment.

Three stars out of five stars is my rating of Vacation Fever by Marjorie Sharmat for the reasons listed above. With that said, I recently found out that there is a companion book called Are We There Yet?, which is told from the side of Mia's brother Ted. I'll have to see if I can find a copy to compare against Vacation Fever.

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