Reddit mentions: The best teen mental illness fiction books

John Lennon was raised by his aunt and uncle, because they felt his mother wasn't capable of it. One of his younger half-sisters was adopted at birth by a Norwegian couple and he never met her, the other two were brought up by his mother and their dad until she died and they were sent to another aunt. His song "Mother" is about his parents not raising him.

I read a lot of Young Adult books, so here's some:

• Finley and the Foster Brother teenage romance, main character goes into care when her mother is hospitalized. Like most YA romance, you have to like the genre :)
  
• Anne of Green Gables for any kids today who don't know it!
  
• Ballet Shoes is an old UK book about three girls who have been adopted into the same family, and go to ballet school (if old stuff counts, there's quite a lot of British stuff set around world war II, like "The war that saved my life" and "Goodnight Mr Tom")
  
• The Great Gilly Hopkins, now a 2016 movie with a great cast, a 12yo girl who wants out of foster care
  
• Dicey's Song, the 2nd book in a series. In the first book, Dicey (a teenage girl) managed to get herself and her siblings to their grandmother's home after their mother disappears ("Homecoming"). This book is about the experience of settling in. It's part of a whole series, the Tillerman Cycle, that covers people in and around the family for years. Great books. My favorite is The Runner, book 4, but that's nothing to do with foster care.
  
  I haven't read these but heard strong recommendations:
  
  
• Returnable Girl, a 13 year old girl in foster care. This won a bunch of awards, but seems pretty predictable
  
• The Last Chance Texaco, I've seen it recommended as a solid story about a kid in a group home
  
  not quite what you asked for, but a few from the perspective of kids with foster siblings:
  
  
• Kinda Like Brothers, a kids book about a 12 year old boy and his foster siblings.
  
• The trouble with Donovan Croft, a boy and his new foster brother, in England.
  
  And some movies, besides Anne of Green Gables and The Great Gilly Hopkins above
  
  
  
• December Boys is a movie about four boys in a (1950's Australia) group home that I feel like is mostly famous for having Daniel Radcliffe in it.
  
• And here's a list of movies recommended by foster alumni. I had totally forgotten that the kid in Free Willy was in foster care!
  
  edit to add: Far From the Tree, an adopted teenage girl learns about her siblings, one adopted and one not.

Happy happy cake day! I think the item that you will get from your high priority wishlist is this.

1 Cake or birthday related

2 Simon Pegg I believe he helped direct or something an episode of Doctor Who.

3 A book you are eager to read

4 Eating Utensils

5 Animal

6 Purple

7 A game

8 A guilty pleasure I have an excessive amount of lip products and still want more.

9 A Tool

10 Something from your childhood

11 An organizational item

12 Hobby

13 Nerdy/Geeky

14 Something Natural ;)

15 Green

16 Something you wear

17 Funny

18 Beads, Bees or Beans

19 Gardening

20 Favorite item

shakes ass Woo! Got them all! Thanks for the contest :)

Delicate the second edition has been completely revised and edited now with 5 brand new chapters!

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Delicate is a young adult coming of age novel that follows Lydia Baker’s struggle with anorexia and self-harm.

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No one knows what set it off but for months she starves, she binges, she purges, she cuts but never too deep. Lydia is hungry. But despite the physical and emotional toll it takes on her family, her friends, school, and her life she cannot eat.

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In the spirit of books like Cut by Patricia Mccormick and WinterGirls by Laurie Halse Anderson Delicate follows Lydia’s determined embrace of, and later struggle with, anorexia and bulimia and her fight to recover.

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Book Blurb:

What I wanted to say in Group, what I want to say to Mom and Dad was that it was simple. I am not extraordinary, I am not special, my case, my illness is not something that is rare. It is common as I have learned from Group. When I was growing up I was average, I played outside, I read books, and I wanted a pony even though I knew it wouldn’t fit in our apartment. I wore band –shirts and short-shorts, I munched on cookies and snacks whenever I wanted without any worry. I had expectations pushed on me, get straight A’s keep your room clean, study and you will achieve, and I did want to. I wanted to be great at something, anything.

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How did I get here?

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It was any number of things, stress, my parents fighting, my personal failures, isolating, I don’t know. There is no one thing that I can point to, it’s all fuzzy. How do you explain how one minute you’re able to eat anything and everything you like and the next minute you’re doing crunches on an empty stomach because you haven’t eaten for three days until you suddenly did and then you shoved your fingers down your throat until it feels like your going to rip it out and you throw up so hard it feels like your eyeball is going to come out?

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Every time I meet with Megan, every time I see Dad or talk with Mom it’s that same question. How did it start? How did it happen? How could this happen I pick at my sweater, I fiddle with my buttons, I chew on my lip and stay quiet. I have nothing to say. It took me months to realize when I was so hungry and hunched in on myself looking at the pasta boiling on the stove that once I had started, not just the starving but the purging I couldn’t stop. I had to keep going. If I didn’t it felt like the world might end as extreme as that sounds, I would rather starve, freeze, grow fur, suffer through headaches and gross mouth sores, and the awful pounding of my heart in my chest than eat.

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I was hungry but I couldn’t eat.

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Type of Feedback: Do you like the story? Do you like the writing style? The characters? The plot? Anything!

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All feedback is welcome and you can leave reviews on Amazon.

Ebook $2.99

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DZ86WP7/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

Paperback $6.99

https://www.amazon.com/DELICATE-Rachel-Zachary/dp/198325794X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Hello! I write YA contemporary/realistic novels. I currently have my 2nd book in the series for FREE. The price goes back to $2.99 tomorrow (September 17th).


https://www.amazon.com/My-Life-Noah-Book-ebook/dp/B07SBQYC9N/

Drink me, the platinum liquid calls.


And I give in.
Repeatedly.
Time and time again.


To forget about her.
The golden-haired goddess
who has overtaken every bit of my being.
She invades every ounce of my soul.


It's more than just a little crush.
Fate binds me to her in an unbreakable curse.


As I meander through the eleventh grade,
she's there at every turn.
I just want to forget her.
But I can't.
No one seems to be able to take her off my mind.


Will I ever have the courage to talk to her, 
or will I hide behind the alcohol
and follow in the footsteps of my mother?


If I do ever find myself in front of her,
ready to begin this fateful journey,
will I even by worthy?


My name is Noah,
and this is my life.

It's a novella entitled My Life as Noah.

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Warning: If heart-wrenching love, cursing, and sexual situations aren't your thing, this book may not be for you. If you love moments of teenage angst and swoon-worthy romance, then take a ride with this book and others in the My Life Series by Victoria Anders.

Ellen Hopkins is a really unique author who writes about drug addiction, mental illnesses etc in sort of “poem” form. They’re super easy to ready but highly addicting. Probably written at a young adult level but they hit me really hard when I read them in my early 20’s
impulse is a great place to start
identical is very well written and dives into some intense mental illness
crank (series) is also written in the same style and all about drug addiction

They’re all older and you can probably find them at your local library. They’ll take less than 2 days to read haha

HOLY CRAP I AM EXCITED TO SHARE THIS!!!

FOR TODAY ONLY THE PROGRAM BY SUZANNE YOUNG IS $1.99!!


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Synopsis:

In Sloane’s world, true feelings are forbidden, teen suicide is an epidemic, and the only solution is The Program.

Sloane knows better than to cry in front of anyone. With suicide now an international epidemic, one outburst could land her in The Program, the only proven course of treatment. Sloane’s parents have already lost one child; Sloane knows they’ll do anything to keep her alive. She also knows that everyone who’s been through The Program returns as a blank slate. Because their depression is gone—but so are their memories.

Under constant surveillance at home and at school, Sloane puts on a brave face and keeps her feelings buried as deep as she can. The only person Sloane can be herself with is James. He’s promised to keep them both safe and out of treatment, and Sloane knows their love is strong enough to withstand anything. But despite the promises they made to each other, it’s getting harder to hide the truth. They are both growing weaker. Depression is setting in. And The Program is coming for them.

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I have never seen this have less than 4 out of 5. If you get this and like it, please tell me!


Happy Reading Everyone!

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It might be The Pause, by John Larkin.

>Declan seems to have it all: a family that loves him, friends he’s known for years, a beautiful girlfriend he would go to the ends of the earth for. But there’s something in Declan’s past that just won’t go away, that pokes and scratches at his thoughts when he’s at his most vulnerable. Declan feels as if nothing will take away that pain that he has buried deep inside for so long. So he makes the only decision he thinks he has left: the decision to end it all. Or does he? As the train approaches and Declan teeters at the edge of the platform, two versions of his life are revealed. In one, Declan watches as his body is destroyed and the lives of those who loved him unravel. In the other, Declan pauses before he jumps. And this makes all the difference. One moment. One pause. One whole new life.

Reading Rainbow

Book contests are the best contests

Rotten or The Program are both on the top of my list.

Thank you!

Beautiful and sad.

Reminds me of a book I read years ago - Uncle Vampire

Spoiler: I bought this book as a teen thinking it was about vampires (I was in a huge vampire phase at the time - this was years before Twilight). It's not.

This book was an amazing eye opener for me. It is about 3 teens who meet in a mental hospital after failed suicide attempts. Each one having their own reasons why they did it. It makes you cherish life and what you have. Reading this book gave me a newfound appreciation for life and friendship. I was in a depression when I found this book and it really opened my eyes to everything.

Just to clarify if I can I'd like to just enter for 2nd and lower. I have a tablet for reading. Thank you for the contest.

Tallulah.

I remember reading a somber YA novel when I was a kid and initially hated the protagonist's name, which happened to be Tallulah. Few years later I ended up falling in love with that name.

Here is the novel: Tallulah Falls.

https://www.amazon.com/Tallulah-Falls-Christine-Fletcher/dp/1599900955