Lovely, Dark, and Deep

The Bookworm says... YES! Lovely, Dark, and Deep by Amy McNamara was an outstanding novel. Mamie Wells was a perfect student, but also an avid partier and social butterfly. One accident causes this girl to disappear forever. She moves from New York City to live in a secluded home in Northern Maine to live with her artist father. She no longer goes by Mamie, but Wren. She completely abandons everything from her old life, and tries to build a new one. This being said, she promises herself that someday she will return to NYC and go to college as planned. One day, after nearly being run over by his car, Wren meets a boy named Cal. They keep in touch, but not often. After months of living like a recluse, Wren's parents intervene. She is forced to get a job, and help out around the house. After being pushed to go see a therapist, Wren heads out on a stress run, forgetting it's nearly midnight. There she runs into Cal, who is with his ex girlfriend. She jumps to conclusions and runs away, back into the woods. In her stress and confusion, she ends up hospitalized with hypothermia. She recovers, and is seemingly happier. Until, that is, her best friend from her former life arrives with a stack of letters she had been meaning to send and two bottles of champagne. Will Wren welcome Meredith back into her life, and return to her old self, or will she continue to push Meredith away and sink back into seclusion, accepting her life for what is? After having this book recommended to me by a close friend (and then proceeding to steal her copy), I wasn't sure how much I would enjoy it. I even put off reading it for a while; once I started the novel I couldn't put it down until two hours later when I finished it. This book is outstanding, and I would recommend it to any young person that may have, not unlike Wren, lost themselves whilst loosing someone else. An excellent debut novel.

"The only constant is change."

It's Kind of a Funny Story

The Bookworm says... YES. It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini was am excellent book. Craig Gilner was always a model students and studied his butt off for the admittance test for Manhattan's Executive Pre-Professional High School. He spends all his time studying, and the pressure pushes him to his breaking point. He begins to become more and more depressed. Once he gets to the school he realizes that he will never be an A+ student, just normal 93's which aren't bad but they aren't outstanding and if they're not outstanding, he won't get into a good college and he won't get a good job. The stress keeps piling on and Craig stops eating and sleeping. He finally decides to kill himself. In the middle of the night, he prepares to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. He calls a suicide hotline and they tell him if he is considering harming himself he should check himself into a hospital. Craig decided that death probably falls under the category of harming yourself, and checks himself in. While in the Brooklyn Mental Health Facility, he finds people that are non-verbal, transsexuals, depressed teens, drug addicts, and... love? Will Craig manage to get his depression under control (or experience the Shift as he calls it)? And what will he use to make this happen? Will he escape this hospital and find true love?