Melissa "Dog/Wolf Lover" Martin's Reading & Ramblings: Suicide Notes by Michael Thomas Ford

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Suicide Notes by Michael Thomas Ford

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. @goodreads

MY REVIEW:

4 STARS

The way the book was going I thought I would be okay and not cry. I WAS WRONG!

The main character is Jeff, he wakes up in the psych ward and finds out he's going to be there for a bit of time. He tried to kill himself, but we don't find out until the end of the book why. I had a love/like relationship with Jeff, at times he would say things that got on my nerves but don't we wall do that?

I loved Sadie, she is a fellow inmate with Jeff and a few others. I enjoyed all of the characters. I loved little Martha, I felt so, so bad for her upon reading her story.

Jeff is a pretty comical dude. He says a lot of crazy stuff and he calls his Dr. , Cat Poop. His real name is Dr. Katzrupus. I would stick with Cat Poop.

Some of Jeff's random thoughts:

There are five of us. In the fun house, I mean. Well, five kids. There are a bunch of adult whack-jobs, too, but they have their own ward. We get our very own Baby Nuthouse all to ourselves. It's just like at Thanksgiving, when all the kids get sent to the little table in the corner. No turkey legs for us. Just the parts no one else wants. Like giblets.
••••••

"You're telling the people at my school that I'm here?" I said. I was already imagining Principal Matthews giving the morning announcement. "Today's lunch will be spaghetti and meatballs, cheerleading tryouts will be held second period in the gym, and Jeff is in the nuthouse."

But there are so many things going on with Jeff. He won't talk about it to anyone. He won't talk about it in group or with the doctor. He slowly hints at things to Sadie over time. They are really good friends in there.

Jeff has to come to accept himself and his sexuality and not let them get to him. With the help from family and his doctor he just might get through all of this. I really wish people were more accepting of people.

I've been thinking about that ever since. Am I lucky? Am I lucky that I didn't die? Am I lucky that, compared to the other kids here, my life doesn't seem so bad? Maybe I am, but I have to say, I don't feel lucky. For one thing, I'm stuck in this pit. And just because your life isn't as awful as someone else's, that doesn't mean it doesn't suck. You can't compare how you feel to the way other people feel. It just doesn't work. What might look like the perfect life---or even an okay life---to you might not be so okay for the person living it.

No truer words have been said. I can totally relate to Jeff in certain ways as I have some of the same mental issues. I thought this was a really good book.