Category: grief

Book review: Essential Maps for the Lost by Deb Caletti

Publisher: Simon Pulse, 2016

How do you go about getting lost? Answer: “There are many ways to be lost.”

The protagonist in Essential Maps for the Lost wants to escape herself. Why? It’s summer, one last summer in Seattle, away from her mom, a realtor, who expects more from her daughter, Mads (Madison) Murray, that she can give. Mads future has been planned for her, it’s a real estate career with her mother unlike the college path that Mads so desires. In order to make her mom happy, Mads stays with her aunt, uncle, and cousin during the summer while taking real estate classes. Then after the brief real estate curriculum at the local college Mads will go home and sign the paperwork making her a partner with her mom.

Do you think you’re having a bad day? Well, Mads, out for a morning swim collides with a dead body. The shocking discovery is of another lost soul who did the imaginable on one traumatic morning. The body of the woman was the mom to Billy Youngwolf Floyd, a grieving young man struggling to bypass the shadow of grief that encapsulates him as he carries a map in his pocket. It’s from his favorite children’s book: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

Mads is obsessed with the dead woman and sets about to stalk her son: Googling the deceased, finding out from where she came, her home, and her family. That is the junction where questions, coincidences, and secrets come into play. Billy, who moves in with his grandmother, is full of questions. He is lost and confused. Billy, who works for an animal shelter, focuses on the only things that makes him feel better: that map from the book.

Billy and Mads, as well as Billy’s grandma, are full of depth, with wonderful personalities, and tangled emotions, albeit the grandma is a bit cranky. Despite the tragedy these characters work really well together and even the minor characters feel real.

So, Billy runs into Mads, who is standing outside his old house. What’s weird is he keeps running into her at random times, like on a bridge, where Billy thinks Mads might be thinking about jumping. They both wonder if they were supposed to meet? Fall in love? Madison wakes up to the world around her and she starts to notice other coincidences, like witnessing Billy commit a crime.

Mads obsession with the dead body, Billy’s deceased mom continues. But she can’t tell Billy that she’s the one that found the body. This book is really about how life can be unfair and cruel, how what you say and how you treat people (and animals) can be the difference between life and death, and how the opinions and hopes of your family members can be hard to deal with and how you can find hope in unexpected places.

This YA novel had a lot of substance to it such as self-discovery and finding out what you really want out of life. With beautiful, lyrical, sometimes witty writing, and pacing on the slower side, you’ll find it a touching read where love needs no reasons. Essential Maps for the Lost is an emotionally significant exploration of grief, mental illness, and hope, as well as the redemptive power of storytelling.

Book review: Our Chemical Hearts by Krystal Sutherland

G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2016

This story about first love is not only heartwarming, but also raw and emotional. It follows Henry Page, a bookish high school senior that has never had a girlfriend, is unexpectedly attracted to new student Grace Town, who brooding and mysterious, enters the school with a conspicuous limp, unwashed and unkempt, and wearing boys’ clothes that are obviously too big for her. After they end up co-editing the school newspaper, an attraction ignites.

Henry becomes quite enamored with Grace as she seems to be hiding a very broken part of herself. But Grace sends mixed signals and has a mysterious upbringing and when grief and love mix together, the outcome is unpredictable. It’s a roller coaster of emotion, and an inside look at how a teen might deal with grief after losing a loved one. It’s a bittersweet, believable look at unrequited love because as their romance blossoms, secrets about Grace’s past, and more importantly her present circumstances are revealed. Is she beyond his help?

This book has teen angst for days. I think what I did like about this teen love story is it was very messy. Young and everlasting love isn’t realistic, and this book touches on even if that is the case, an individual can still impact you immensely. The diverse characters with realistic motivations including endearing friendships and family relationships really make this YA romantic tearjerker that much more enjoyable.

Secret Whispers available on 04/11/21

A beautiful family hiding dysfunction.

A house full of secrets.

An intelligent, creative, and schizophrenic girl.

An awkward, awesome, zealous boy.

Noxious peers. Worse high school. Embarrassing moments.

Danger lurks. Young love.  Reality?

What befalls one on an unraveling journey? And what is it like to question one’s own sanity? Adria is a high school junior with a penchant for painting and a clear goal: to hide the changes from anyone and everyone. In reality, she’s just developing schizophrenia. Genes are not in Adria’s corner. With an uncle as well as an older brother with paranoid schizophrenia, she’s got the family ties that make her life a challenge. Not that she needs any more stress. As the primary caregiver to her younger siblings, Adria’s life couldn’t be anything less than jam-packed and ready to implode. Adria must choose whether to risk everything, including her sanity and a first love, in a desperate attempt to save her family from the evil that stalks them.

Then there’s Ben, an awkward average teen but totally in awe at what he sees in Adria: a curious, quirky, and calm-natured dream that just applied for a job at the same store. He can’t help but be magnetically drawn to everything that is Adria, whom he meets when the odds are against her: in school, at their part-time job, and at home, especially. Little does he know her outward deficiencies are only the tip of the iceberg. Will he save the girl of his dreams, or is she destined to falter and pull him under with her when her mental health condition triggers.

Angela Grey, a writer with paranoid schizophrenia,, OCD, PTSD, and social anxiety, whom herself spent time in a psychiatric hospital, has created a memorable moving tale about the sometimes unexpected and challenging road to first love.