Mental Health: Empathy and Understanding

Lucy was raised by foster parents after her own mother became mentally ill, foster parents who may know more about her past than they’ve shared. Lucy must solve a puzzle, found in the song Scarborough Fair, to break a curse and save her own sanity. Werlin, known mysteries and thrillers, gives this story a unique touch of fantasy.

Lia and Cassie are both “wintergirls” — frozen in bodies and minds that strive for the impossible. Cassie’s death — was it accidental or suicide? — haunts Lia in this plausible, evocative, and unforgettable look at eating disorders.

Challenger Deep is a stand-alone novel by Neal Shusterman, author of The Unwind Dystology. It deals frankly with issues surrounding teenage mental illness. Caden, the narrator, experiences paranoid and delusional thinking and is hospitalized. A character attempts suicide. Violence in the book is mostly imaginary and centered on a fantastical ship on which the captain and his parrot want to kill each other. Language is mild, with an instance or two each of “hell,” “damn,” “bastard,” and “ass.” Sexual content is limited to hand-holding and one night of cuddling in bed. Caden’s parents are mildly intoxicated in one scene. Caden takes a “cocktail” of prescribed medications, and the regimen helps him heal.

Leigh Chen Sanders is absolutely certain about one thing: When her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird. When Leigh, who is half Asian and half white, travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time and find her mother, she winds up chasing after ghosts, uncovering family secrets, and forging a new relationship with her grandparents. A luminous debut novel about finding oneself through family history, art, bravery, and love. Winner of the 2019 Walter Award and the Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature Honor.

Aza Holmes never intended to pursuethe disappearance of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Pickett’s son Davis.

Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.

 A realistic and emotional novel about a woman battling mental illness and societal pressures written by the iconic American writer Sylvia Plath.The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. 

That night Ingrid told Caitlin, I’ll go wherever you go. But by dawn Ingrid, and her promise, were gone. Ingrid’s suicide immobilizes Caitlin, leaving her unsure of her place in a new life she hardly recognizes. A life without the art, the laughter, the music, and the joy that she shared with her best friend…. But Ingrid left something behind. In words and drawings, Ingrid documented a painful farewell in her journal. Journeying through Ingrid’s final days, Caitlin fights back through unspeakable loss to find renewed hope.

When Griffin’s first love and ex-boyfriend, Theo, dies in a drowning accident, his universe implodes. Even though Theo had moved to California for college, Griffin never doubted Theo would come back to him when the time was right. But now, the future he’s been imagining for himself has gone far off course.

To make things worse, the only person who truly understands his heartache is Theo’s new boyfriend, Jackson. But no matter how much they open up to each other, Griffin’s downward spiral continues. He’s losing himself in his obsessive compulsions and destructive choices, and the secrets he’s been keeping are tearing him apart. If Griffin is ever to rebuild his future, he must first confront his history, every last heartbreaking piece in the puzzle of his life.

Seventeen-year-old Bo has always had delusions that he can travel through time. When he was ten, Bo claimed to have witnessed the Titanic hit an iceberg, and at fifteen, he found himself on a Civil War battlefield, horrified by the bodies surrounding him. So when his concerned parents send him to a school for troubled youth, Bo assumes he knows the truth: that he’s actually attending Berkshire Academy, a school for kids who, like Bo, have “superpowers.”

At Berkshire, Bo falls in love with Sofia, a quiet girl with a tragic past and the superpower of invisibility. Sofia helps Bo open up in a way he never has before. In turn, Bo provides comfort to Sofia, who lost her mother and two sisters at a very young age. 

But even the strength of their love isn’t enough to help Sofia escape her deep depression. After she commits suicide, Bo is convinced that she’s not actually dead. He believes that she’s stuck somewhere in time — that he somehow left her in the past, and now it’s his job to save her.