Books I Couldn't Finish and Why: Volume 1

What Happens Now, by Jennifer Castle

This was a contemporary/slice-of-life fiction book that struck me as just a bunch of "this happened and then this happened and then this happened..." It didn't focus that much on Ari's issue with how she self-harmed and instead focused on a guy, her relationship with a friend, and stuff that didn't matter to Ari's health nearly as much. Perhaps I'm being a bit hard on the book, but that was my thought as I read through it. That said, I only got about 20 pages in and had to stop because of lack of mental energy to push through a superficial book. Hence, that book is now a DNF (did not finish).

Get Well Soon, by Julie Halpern

It was basically just a giant journal of being in a psych ward. There was a moody protagonist, nothing got worked through, and it was in the format of a giant journal. If I’d needed that, I could’ve reread my own psych ward journal. This just wasn’t worth pushing past the triggers for. All in all, if someone wanted to know what a psych ward was like without all the traumatizing bits, maybe you could read the book, but the book was still really callous and honestly fairly vulgar and just overall wasn’t worth my time or my mental state.

It's Kind of a Funny Story, by Ned Vizzini

This one's yet another story about a psych ward, but this one I stopped before I even finished the first chapter because it started talking about sex and pot and all this other stuff. It wasn't focused on any sort of mental health or psych wards in the way that I was hoping for and I didn't have the mental energy to push myself through reading a book that--judging by flipping through it--was going to continuously mention crude things. While this one might have been reviewed by the New York Times, I wouldn't recommend it based on what I've seen of it. Overall, it just wasn't worth it to me. The writing style wasn't all that great, the content was quite iffy, and that made it a no for me.

Marcelo in the Real World, by Francisco X. Stork

The overall story of this just didn't get me to a part where it could redeem itself. This one wasn't bad because of the content so much as the writing style itself and the lack of time for bad books that I have. I'm not going to spend my time on something that just tells me everything. I could tell a story like that easily. I want to be shown the world, shown how the characters are feeling, shown the struggle, and I just didn't find that in this. Maybe someone else did, maybe someone out where will argue with me over this one, but if you're looking for a good book written about an autistic character, I wouldn't recommend this one. It's focused more on the life around the autistic than the autistic himself in my eyes. I just didn't like this book overall and deemed it unworthy of my time and energy. If you're looking to try a book, I didn't find anything questionable as far as I read, but I can't vouch for anything.

The Man Who Couldn't Stop, by David Adam

I read this book until chapter 2, waiting for something to change... it never did. It's the kind of book that's written in a classic autobiographical style but also explains OCD in a very thorough way. For someone who already knows a lot of OCD, I just couldn't get through it. It was dry, used good examples, but it felt really detached. If you're looking for a book that really goes into the depths of what OCD is and doesn't mind vulgarities such as talk of sex and drugs and things along those lines, feel free to try it, but it's definitely not a book that I would recommend just for fun reading.