For fans of Girl in Pieces, All the Bright Places, and Girl, Interrupted comes a haunting and breathtaking YA contemporary debut novel that packs a powerful message: hope can be found in the darkness.
Seventeen-year-old Ellie had no hope left. Yet the day after she dies by suicide, she finds herself in the midst of an out-of-body experience. She is a spectator, swaying between past and present, retracing the events that unfolded prior to her death.
But there are gaps in her memory, fractured pieces Ellie is desperate to re-assemble. There's her mother, a songbird who wanted to break free from her oppressive cage. The boy made of brushstrokes and goofy smiles who brought color into a gray world. Her brooding father, with his sad puppy eyes and clenched fists. Told in epistolary-like style, this deeply moving novel sensitively examines the beautiful and terrible moments that make up a life and the possibilities that live in even the darkest of places. Perfect for fans of the critically-acclaimed Speak, I’ll Give You the Sun, and If I Stay.
MY REVIEW: 4 Stars ⭐️
Damn, this is gonna be along one... I have many mental disorders, one being bipolar depression with those wonderful suicidal thoughts. Yeah, I still get them a lot. Seems funny with my 2 year cancer free anniversary coming up. But, mental illness is a bitch you can’t understand. SPOILER EXCERPTS!
I’m going to add a lot of excerpts from the book, mostly things I felt meant something to me, including some from authors note. This book is also about domestic abuse.
Authors Note:
*The moment the truth is out, you can’t shove it back into its shadowy corner. And the truth is, there are days when I feel unstoppable, days when my pockets are lined with sunshine and possibilities, and then there are days when I feel there are anchors tied to my ankles and I am sinking and no one can see me drowning.
*This book is for the Ellies of the world who we have lost, the ones left behind whose hearts are mending, and those teetering on the edge between hope and pain.
And if that is you, I see you.
Please stay.
Again, I say this to you (because I have often had to remember it myself) : The world needs you in it.
*For the ones wandering in the dark.
Don’t forget that the stars are yours too.
Ellie...
My head falls into my hands and I rub my temples, fighting to remember. I had thoughts of suicide all the time. Passing thoughts. They had felt tender and secret, but I don’t remember that moment—that moment when it wasn’t just a thought but a secret monster made real.
I am here. August is on my front porch and I am here, forcing my hand to stay put against the glass so it doesn’t slide through. I want this to be real. My eyes beg to be seen.
Your mom gathers you into her arms and you bury your head in her shoulder. It is strange to see someone so large needing to collapse on someone so small. I turn to run, it I hear your muffled shaky voice, "She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead. She’s dead."
The tide has washed me in and I can’t leave.
You reach into the box and hold the origami birds, tracing the edges even though they are worn and might break. You take them in your ruined hands and press them to your heart.
Depression, I didn’t know what you were when you came sneaking under my window. I had known sadness. I had known loneliness. I had known anger and resentment and shame and fleeting numbness. I had known all those things. They would come and go, settling into the air and around my fingertips and eyelashes.
You always snuck up on me when I wasn’t looking. You seeped in and dug in your claws.
You were a tricky thing. I wanted to be able to scrub you clean and make you shiny so you didn’t feel like you were rotting inside me.
Momma and I clung tight to each other that night and when I woke up, we were both bloody and on the floor, tangled up in our pain and secrets.
And you returned, fierce and incessant, and I had nothing left to fight back.
You won.
Life, You were broken, often ugly, and always too much, but you also hid promises in pockets, tucked hope under mattresses, and crammed a thousand perfect moments between the shards of sharp and treacherous ones.
I am sorry I had forgotten them.
I am sorry I didn’t even see.
And a breath too late, I realized...
I loved you.
Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾
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