Discussion: Romanticizing Mental Illness
Romanticization is a common element of mental illness narratives, including many in the YA category; what kind of message does that send?
Blog overview
Post listing
Interview with Corey Ann Haydu about OCD Love Story
A Q&A with author Corey Ann Haydu about the origins of OCD Love Story and the many and varied ways anxiety can manifest.
Review: OCD Love Story by Corey Ann Haydu
Some people call OCD a doubting disease. Corey Ann Haydu infuses her story with the back-and-forth, pulsing presence of this doubt, resulting in a first-person, insider’s account of what the condition feels like for many.
Discussion: Stigmatizing Treatment of Mental Illness in Fiction
Many characters who may be mentally ill reject treatment out of hand, considering therapy a waste of time and suspecting medication will turn them into a zombie. Why are these narratives so popular? What are the alternatives?
Interview with Cindy L. Rodriguez about When Reason Breaks
After our rave review of Cindy Rodriguez’s debut When Reason Breaks—about two very different girls who are both dealing with depression—we were excited to invite both reviewer and author to the website this week to discuss the book further.
Review: I Was Here by Gayle Forman
I Was Here is full of wasted potential; Meg is as much of a prop to the story as Mr. Body is to Clue.
Discussion: The Challenges of Writing About Mental Illness
Writing about characters with mental illness can be challenging in various ways. How do you accurately convey a character’s state of mind, without compromising on clarity or excitement? How do you show a character’s skewed perceptions of the world?
Depression Has No Straight Lines, Only Lies
What about readers like me, who never see their own illnesses depicted? To see story after story where depression draws a straight line to suicide is, for better or for worse, expressing that depression only functions in one way.
Review: This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers
This book moves on the back of plot: a girl who didn’t want to survive in the regular world is one of a few survivors of the zombie apocalypse, trapped with classmates in their school. But the warped perspective that Sloane’s depression gives to her situation is what makes this book special.
Review: Stranger by Rachel Manija Brown & Sherwood Smith
Stranger represents a case where verisimilitude—the appearance of plausibility—succeeds where a more realistic representation of disability might have failed.