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 Dear readers. The fault in Zac And Mia is not in the writing or the romance, but in the characters that Betts creates. Novels like this rely on the readers to establish an emotional connection with the characters, but I never really felt any strong emotions to them or the plot. Part of my issue with connecting to the characters is that I feel as if I've already read a better rendition of it -- The Fault In Our Stars, a novel that I fell in love with almost automatically. Zac And Mia does set itself apart from TFIOS at times, but it never really managed to impress me. 
 The beginning of Zac And Mia made me feel as if this would be a novel that I would love with its brutal, yet honest portrayal of cancer. Zac is concerned with his chances of survival based on statistics that he's collected and he's accepted that his odds aren't bad. Betts definitely did her part to make this novel feel authentic because she doesn't gloss over some of the more technical (and medical) parts of cancer treatment. 
 I didn't quite like Zac or Mia to be honest and that is the root of all of my qualms with this novel. They were just characters to me and Betts never made them feel like they were anything more than that -- Zac and Mia were just splotches of ink and that's it. Zac is pragmatic and Mia is extremely cold, but I wanted more than that; I wanted to love these character and feel empathic towards their plight, but I couldn't. I'm an extremely sensitive person and the fact that this novel couldn't even make me feel anything for these characters was upsetting. I expected to cry or at least tear up at least once during this novel, but I just couldn't. 
 Despite my lack of connection to the characters, Betts is a talented writer and she truly creates an intriguing setting. This novel takes place in Australia and everything feels so true to the Down Under. I'm not Aussie by any means, but I loved the slang and how this novel didn't take place in America like the majority of novels that I read each year. Though the setting doesn't make much of an impact on the novel, it felt nice to read about an exotic location. 
 Zac And Mia is quite predictable and many of the moments in this novel felt very "Nicholas Sparks-esque" or that they were inspired by TFIOS. I knew what direction this novel would go on early on and I wasn't impressed with how the plot was executed. The ending was quite disappointing and I really didn't enjoy how this novel concluded because it felt like a cop-out and was the obvious route. 
 I'd hesitate to recommend Zac And Mia to my friends and readers who've already read TFIOS will likely be disappointed with this novel. I would read another novel by A.J. Betts in the future and would give her another shot because I do feel as if she is a promising writer. Zac And Mia is a well-written novel, but it doesn't quite have the heart and passion that I expected.