Genre: Fiction/Contemporary
Page Count: 250+
Published: 2019 (Chicken House)
Potential Triggers: Swearing, Drinking/Drugs, Abuse, Psychiatric Care Facilities, Suicidal Ideation/Attempts, Self Harm, Suicide,
Mental Health Topics: Depression, Addiction, Eating Disorder(s), Anxiety,
Okay, so I already wrote a Goodreads review for this one—you can read that here—but I figured I'd go into more depth with you guys. This book was one that I wasn't sure what to write about. It was terrible but also sorta okay at the same time. As I said in my initial review, nothing was necessarily unforgivably bad, but nothing was terrific either. Coming from someone who has been to a psych ward, though... this book was a disgrace.
This was something that I could've written myself. Just smacked out the happenings I went through onto a page, changed the names, and didn't really change the language at all. It was super colloquial, there was no fun language, and it was impressively ordinary considering it was supposed to be an extraordinary tale of occurrences—or at least, that's how I saw it.
Maybe rating this as 2 stars is a bit cruel, but honest to goodness, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone and I certainly wouldn't reread it. Thankfully this is a book that I borrowed from the library instead of buying because I don't know what I would've done otherwise. There are other books where I felt similar about their portrayal of psych wards, such as Ned Vizzini's "It's Kind of a Funny Story" and while I didn't like that book either, I was able to believe it more than this one. This one seemed too fantastical to even fit in the category of Contemporary Fiction. I had to suspend my disbelief so many times that it was honestly unpleasant and mentally taxing to remind myself "This isn't real." I feel like a person shouldn't need to go through so much trouble to read a book that was supposed to be enjoyable.
Honestly, as much as it pains me to say, I barely gave this book 2-stars. It was that bad. Maybe y'all will disagree after you read it, but that's my opinion on this book. It was not good at all. I have yet to find a book that does the trauma of psych wards justice.