Biz’s mental health crisis, which primarily takes the form of hallucinations, dissociation, and panic attacks, is portrayed with raw, vivid authenticity. After an incident further triggers her undiagnosed (or, at least, unnamed) PTSD, Biz begins to unravel, dropping out of school before both literally and metaphorically journeying to better understand her father. She doesn’t tell anyone else: not her single mother, not her best friend, Grace (with whom she shared a kiss), not the new boy, Jasper, who walks with a limp, or his grandmother, who has taken Biz under her wing. He pops up to remind her of events from her childhood, to speak with her when she’s spiraling, to puzzle out their shared history of mental illness. Seventeen-year-old Biz constantly sees her father even though he died nearly 10 years ago. An Australian teenager struggles to cope with grief and mental illness in this captivating debut.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |