Suicide Notes
Author: Michael Thomas Ford
Publication Date: 10/1/08
Publisher: HarperTeen

Blurb (GR): I'm not crazy. I don't see what the big deal is about what happened. But apparently someone does think it's a big deal because here I am. I bet it was my mother. She always overreacts.

Fifteen-year-old Jeff wakes up on New Year's Day to find himself in the hospital. Make that the psychiatric ward. With the nutjobs. Clearly, this is all a huge mistake. Forget about the bandages on his wrists and the notes on his chart. Forget about his problems with his best friend, Allie, and her boyfriend, Burke. Jeff's perfectly fine, perfectly normal, not like the other kids in the hospital with him. Now they've got problems. But a funny thing happens as his forty-five-day sentence drags on—the crazies start to seem less crazy.

Compelling, witty, and refreshingly real, Suicide Notes is a darkly humorous novel from award-winning author Michael Thomas Ford that examines that fuzzy line between "normal" and the rest of us.


Review:
It feels a little weird to say that I felt a book about a 45-day program in a juvenile psychiatric unit was really funny. But it was—in parts. This book, written in journal entries from day one of the program until the last day, focuses on Jeff’s evaluation of why he tried to kill himself. His voice is reminiscent of Holden Caulfield, only he doesn’t call everyone phonies—just whackjobs. 

Jeff introduces us to the other young adults in the unit, some of whom come and go during his stay. He also has to see a psychiatrist during his time in the program, the delightful Dr. Katzrupus. (or Cat Poop, as Jeff dubs him) At first, I felt like we weren’t getting to know each supporting character well enough but isn’t that the point? I mean, Jeff is in this program solely to figure out what his issues are. These are his journal entries we are reading. And it all felt real—I felt anxious with him, sad for him, mortified with him, and so hopeful that maybe it would all work out. The relationship he had with his sister made me laugh the most, though. 

While this book definitely deals with a lot of morbid topics, the feel is decidedly optimistic for the most part. I enjoyed the fact that Jeff was very matter-of-fact about most things and the conversations he had with people didn’t really tiptoe around the serious stuff. His doctor/patient relationship with Dr. Katzrupus was a highlight as well.

I’d definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a male voice in the female-saturated YA world. Though I hope this wouldn’t affect anyone’s choice to read a book or not, there are some M/M sexual scenes. Just putting that out there. I’ll definitely read more from this author. 

4/5 stars

Forgotten
Author: Cat Patrick
Publication Date: 6/7/11
Publisher: Little Brown

Blurb (GR): Each night when 16 year-old London Lane goes to sleep, her whole world disappears. In the morning, all that's left is a note telling her about a day she can't remember. The whole scenario doesn't exactly make high school or dating that hot guy whose name she can't seem to recall any easier. But when London starts experiencing disturbing visions she can't make sense of, she realizes it's time to learn a little more about the past she keeps forgetting-before it destroys her future.

Part psychological drama, part romance, and part mystery, this thought-provoking novel will inspire readers to consider the what-if's in their own lives and recognize the power they have to control their destinies

Review:

_You had me, Cat Patrick. You had me for a significant portion of this novel. Then you totally lost me. You did, however, inspire me to read up on short-term memory loss. For those of you wondering what the heck that has to with anything, this book’s main character is a teenage girl who “resets” every morning around 4am. Each night, she writes notes for herself of things she needs to read for school, what she should wear tomorrow, and any developments with family and friends. The entire book keeps the reader wondering what the impetus for the memory loss was and whether London Lane (yes) will be able to regain some of her lost memories.

London’s mother and best friend know of her memory situation but there is no mention of anyone else knowing—do her peers her teachers know? I feel it is unbelievable if they don’t. There is no way that someone can write notes for their entire life and keep them detailed enough to pass as a normal in everyday life. Right? Think of all the details. Updating herself on every day of her life every single morning? I’m skeptical. Another point that creeped me out a bit was London’s relationship with Luke. If every day is the first day you are meeting someone, it is beyond creepy that you would ever sleep with him. Or love him. Sure, I can see London trusting herself in her notes but she really had no reason to because she repeatedly wrote what she wanted next-day London to know, not what actually happened or what she needed to know. Neither Luke nor London are having a normal relationship here and I didn’t find myself rooting for either of them.

The mystery element of this book builds slowly and then just punches you in the face at the end. In a bad way. I know I would’ve enjoyed this book more if the unraveling was simpler. (click to see the spoilers through my Goodreads review) And I know that television shows exaggerate the amount of evidence that DNA and bodies can confirm but (also, spoiler on Goodreads review) Umm, yeah.

All in all, I still thought this book was an okay read. The problems I had were all plot and character related rather than dealing with the writing style. I’ll read more of this author's works.

3/5 stars

Sisters in Sanity
Author: Gayle Forman
Publication Date: 9/1/07
Publisher: HarperTeen

Blurb (GR): "Where are they taking me?"

"It's for your own good, Brit," Dad said.

I was shoved into a small, stuffy room, and the door was locked behind me. I waited for my dad to realize he'd made a terrible mistake and come get me.

But he didn't.

For sixteen-year-old Brit Hemphill, it's hard to know who she can trust. Convinced she's out of control, her father has sentenced her to Red Rock: a center for supposedly rebellious teens, where the therapy consists of name-calling and the girls who get privileges are the ones who rat out their peers.

But then Brit meets V, Bebe, Martha, and Cassie—four girls who keep her from going over the edge. Together, they'll hold on to their sanity and their sisterhood despite the bleak Red Rock reality.

Review:
Sometimes I am just not excited to read a book. (What up, book club?) I knew of Gayle Forman from her book If I Stay, which I wrote a gushing review of a few months back. A few of us decided to read this lesser-known work of hers together this week. I was excited to read the book because of the author and because I was reading it with friends…but not so excited about the subject matter. I assumed that this was rather well-worn territory, what with Girl Interrupted and all. Also, I wasn’t in the mood for a depressing book. Sisters in Sanity surprised me in a good way, and I definitely recommend it to those who are interested in YA books related to mental health issues/treatment.

Brit Hemphill lives with her father and her stepmonster. Her mother isn’t in the picture and I don’t want to spoil where she is so I’ll leave it at that. Her parents owned a coffeehouse in Portland during her formative years so she rubbed elbows with all sorts of famous musicians and took up the guitar, teaching herself how to play for the most part. Because of her mother’s absence and her father’s relationship (and subsequent child), Brit spends as much time out of the house as possible, mostly playing and touring with her band. When her father and stepmother make her go on a family vacation to the Grand Canyon, Brit is angry she’ll miss a gig but obliges. Only she isn’t going to the Grand Canyon—her dad is dropping her off at a juvenile rehabilitation center because she is “out of control.”

Anger. That’s the emotion I felt for most of the book, not sadness. I was livid with Brit’s father. Absolutely wanted (and still want) to punch that man in the face. How could he do that to his child?

I was expecting the novel to follow the Girl, Interrupted storyline and, for the most part, it did. I was pleasantly surprised, however, at the supporting cast of characters (who were far more balanced than those with Susanna Kaysen) and the relationship between Brit and Jed, her bandmate. His letters and the description of the time they spent together were both lovely and I loved the story behind the firefly references.

The writing flowed really well and all three of us that read it finished it in a day. (as far as I know) I did feel that the ending wrapped things up just a bit too perfectly, then again I am a fan of leaving things hanging—well, if it is realistic. 

3.25/5 stars

Ultraviolet
Author: R.J. Anderson
Publication Date: 9/1/11 (US, UK 2/11)
Publisher: Carolrhoda Lab (US)

Blurb (GR): "Once upon a time there was a girl who was special. This is not her story. Unless you count the part where I killed her."

Sixteen-year-old Alison wakes up in a mental institution. As she pieces her memory back together, she realizes she’s confessed to murdering Tori Beaugrand, the most perfect girl at school. But the case is a mystery. Tori's body has not been found, and Alison can't explain what happened. One minute she was fighting with Tori. The next moment Tori disintegrated—into nothing.

But that's impossible. No one is capable of making someone vanish. Right? Alison must be losing her mind—like her mother always feared she would.

For years Alison has tried to keep her weird sensory abilities a secret. No one ever understood—until a mysterious visiting scientist takes an interest in Alison's case. Suddenly, Alison discovers that the world is wrong about her—and that she’s capable of far more than anyone else would believe

Review:
Ultraviolet is a genre-bender, there’s no doubt about it, and I don’t think I’ve been this surprised about the direction a book took in quite some time.  What I find particularly intriguing is the fact that all of us who’ve read it seem equally stumped as to how to write a review of a book whilst still leaving out half of the plot so as to preserve the experience for other readers--talk about a mighty task. When I originally wrote a placeholder for this review, it basically just said that I wish I could somehow warn off the subset of readers that might not be on board for the plot twist in this one. It would truly be a shame if the ratings for the book go down due to the alienation.   Then again, I myself was THAT reader who went apeshit at a genre change in I Am Not A Serial Killer. Let’s just say that the setup for the genre switch in Ultraviolet actually has quite a bit of buildup and since I knew we were in a psych ward and things could get trippy, I was game for whatever this author was going to toss my way.

I’ve already read two YA books set in psychiatric treatment situations this year—Gayle Forman's Sisters in Sanity and Michael Thomas Ford's Suicide Notes.  Turns out, I really like the genre so if you know of any more good ones, shoot the recs to me in the comments. At the onset of this novel, Alison Jeffries wakes up in a psych ward after she fought with Tori, a classmate from school of whom Alison has always been a little suspect. Tori is missing and Alison thinks she might’ve killed her but she’s finding it hard to recollect the details from the event because she suffered some sort of mental overload during and directly afterward. She remembers disintegrating Tori, but that can’t be right, can it?

The prose in Ultraviolet is saturated with imagery, and it didn’t bother me too much because there was a reason for it. I don’t want to spoil Alison’s diagnoses but the language and stylistic choices are deliberate and effective at giving readers a glance into what life might be like in Ali’s world. She keeps most of her experiences under tight wraps and that aspect of the book was both fascinating and frustrating. It was fascinating to me to see what it might be like to “fake it”—to completely pretend that the experiences you are having aren’t happening. I can’t pretend to know what it would be like but it must be awful to have no idea if what you are experiencing might be normal. I was happy to see Alison finally open up—it was rough going for a bit there.

I truly loved the first half of the book and frankly, I am surprised at myself that I found the second half to be a little weaker because it is right in my wheelhouse. I think I just got so wrapped up in the self-analysis and the murder mystery that when the book turned heavy on the action, my brain just shut off.  I still kept fiendishly turning the pages (well, on my Kindle), but I was rather flabbergasted at what was going on.  And I hear there’s a sequel in the works? I am happy/sad about that-- happy because I rather enjoyed this one and it will be interesting to see where Ali (and Tori? And maybe even Sebastian?) goes from here, but sad because I thought this was a standalone.

I recommend this book to those who are ready for a surprise and those who, whether they like tons of description or not, are willing to give it a chance when it actually has a purpose other than indulgence.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a review copy!

4/5 stars