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Showing posts with label mental illness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mental illness. Show all posts

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Hurry Down Sunshine by Michael Greenberg

This memoir accurately portrays the turmoil and calamity that befalls a family when one of them becomes mentally ill.

Greenberg's fifteen-year-old daughter suddenly becomes mentally ill; she has visions and is struck inexplicably "mad." Most of the events in the memoir occur during the summer of 1996 in Greenwich Village.

Sally briefly stays in mental hospital where she is given drugs that slowly calm her mania. Greenberg ponder other famous depressives, Robert Lowell, for instance, who wrote eloquently about manic illness. 

Winner of the NAMI Ken book award, this work not only describes Sally's illness but also its terrible effects on other family members--the girl's grandmother, mother, stepmother, and brother. 

Saturday, November 19, 2016

Some Kind of Happiness by Claire LeGrande

In Some Kind of Happiness a young girl, Finley Hart, who is suffering from crippling anxiety, invents her own world, Everwood. She is surprised to find that Everwood is a real place, the woods behind her Grandparents’ house. While this could have been a simple story about magic, LeGrande’s story alternates between fantasy and Finley’s real-life traumas.

Finley has been sent to her grandparents’ house for the summer because her parents are having marital problems. Though Finley has never met her Dad’s family, she agrees to spend a summer with them.

Finley finds her Grandparents, Aunts and cousins, collectively known as The Harts, fascinating and intimidating at the same time. She longs  to be accepted by them because they seem to be the perfect family who are charitable, fun, and outgoing. They don’t have the anxiety problems that haunt her.

In her Everwood journal, Finley images herself to be an orphan girl who must keep the dark away from her precious woods. She wants to protect the Harts from the darkness but does not realize they are hiding their own dark secrets.

Brilliantly realized, this is a great story for young adults or middle schoolers.

Some Kind of Happiness by Claire LeGrande

In Some Kind of Happiness a young girl, Finley Hart, who is suffering from crippling anxiety, invents her own world, Everwood. She is surprised to find that Everwood is a real place, the woods behind her Grandparents’ house. While this could have been a simple story about magic, LeGrande’s story alternates between fantasy and Finley’s real-life traumas.

Finley has been sent to her grandparents’ house for the summer because her parents are having marital problems. Though Finley has never met her Dad’s family, she agrees to spend a summer with them.

Finley finds her Grandparents, Aunts and cousins, collectively known as The Harts, fascinating and intimidating at the same time. She longs  to be accepted by them because they seem to be the perfect family who are charitable, fun, and outgoing. They don’t have the anxiety problems that haunt her.

In her Everwood journal, Finley images herself to be an orphan girl who must keep the dark away from her precious woods. She wants to protect the Harts from the darkness but does not realize they are hiding their own dark secrets.

Brilliantly realized, this is a great story for young adults or middle schoolers.

Saturday, June 20, 2015

If I Fall, If Die by Michael Christie

In this high-octane novel, a boy learns to abolish his fears and live his life fully.


Will has lived an extremely sheltered life--he's lived indoors from age 7 to 11 because his mother is fearful. Her phobias were too numerous to count. She is afraid of, "lightning, fire, electricity, water, accidents, vehicles, animals, the Outside, people." 


After someone pipe bombs their house, Will surprises her one day by deciding to take a walk in the terrifying Outside. For the first time, he meets other kids and begins doing what he calls "destructivity" experiments.


As Will explores the outside world, he begins to discern the racial tensions in Thunder Bay--the disconnect between whites and Natives. Because of his isolation, Will can identify with the nearly silent, Jonah, and enter his world. 

Will finds himself becoming addicted to dangerous activities like skateboarding and investigating a native boy's disappearance. Fearful that she is losing control of her son, Diane tells Will he has a medical condition--an inexcusable lie.

While searching for clues about the disappearance, Will is starting to unravel the secret of his own family's tragic past. He questions the "wheezing man" aka Titus about Marcus. Oddly, Will finds Titus' fingerprints in his own house.

Michael Christie describes a woman's mental illness and her claustrophobic hold on her son perfectly. Will knows his mother's problems as the Black Lagoon:

"When the Black Lagoon came, when its bear trap was sprung upon her heart, her eyes went swimmy and blotted with white nose like channel zero on TV."

He also describes Titus' mental illness in a way that feels genuine. Titus' dialog, which is indecipherable at first, gradually begins to make sense in its own twisted way. 

Though readers know the relationship between the Cardiels and Titus fairly early, the novel's central mystery is still compelling. This novel is wonderful for adults and may possibly interest mature young adults.


Michael Christie's latest novel, Greenwood, explores the lives of a multi-generational family and their relationship with the forest of the Pacific Northwest.

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