by Julia Walton
First sentence: “My first doctor said it was unusual for the symptoms to manifest in someone so young.”
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Content: There’s swearing, including multiple f-bombs, and some tasteful on-screen sex. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

Adam is a regular teen. Mostly. He has regular teen boy desires, interests… the only difference is that he’s been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. The kind that make you see things — in Adam’s case, he sees people and hears voices. He’s on a new trial drug, though, and as part of it, he’s required to go to therapy. He doesn’t want to, and he doesn’t want to talk to the therapist, so the book is a series of diary entries where Adam describes what’s going on in his life, how he’s reacting to the drug, and answering the therapist’s questions, such as they are.

I found the format of the book to be super fascinating: it got us in Adam’s head, while not being mundane or super weird; the entries were made weekly, so Adam was able to reflect on the week. So, while he may have had episodes, the book never took the reader through the middle of them, since the entries were always written afterward. I thoroughly enjoyed being in Adam’s head; he had a super strong voice that came through, and I enjoyed his sense of humor around his mental health. It was also a case in which the parents (hooray!) were absolutely fantastic. They fought for Adam and his rights and wanted nothing but the best for him. The conflict was partially internal — Adam against his mental health — and from his peers, who just don’t understand what’s going on.

It’s a really excellent book; definitely a good look at a mental health issue that not many people know much about.