e-ARC, 325 pages
Release Date: May 9, 2022
Published by: Deathly Novels
Read from: May 5-6, 2022
Stand-alone
Source: Author Request (I was given this e-ARC in exchange for a just and honest review)
TW:
For Readers Interested In: Mental health awareness, Racial/Ethnic diversity, YAFrom viral spoken word poet D.N. KRIS, the first ever YA Contemporary Fantasy novel written in verse about mental health. Buckle up for a thrilling ride of a lifetime as you read about a teenager’s abduction into a mental health facility designed for “problem kids” and how she copes with her new diagnosis.
Krissa Mia Williams thought mental illnesses were for freaks.
She kept her head down as an African American junior in high school, especially in trigonometry. But when her long-term boyfriend finds his way to her best friend and cheats, she stops seeing the point in smiling when every day at school is a constant reminder. Her grades slip like an avalanche, and soon she receives a pink slip to attend summer school. Unfortunately, her first day catching the bus turns into a full-blown abduction.
She awakes at a magical mental health facility designed to help mentally ill high school students, but soon, she’s diagnosed and falls self-destructive. And a self-care cult is watching her closely. Through eavesdropped secrets, double kidnappings, hypnotist teachers, vicious Rottweilers, and betrayal, Krissa wants nothing more than for her diagnosis to go away. She must battle the mental disorder inside her before it consumes her—and the world—rotten.
*MY THOUGHTS*
The author reached out to me to review this, and when I heard what it was about, I jumped on the chance. Anything that is diverse and YA that’s self-pubbed, I’ll read it if I have time because there’s just not enough of it being publicized. When I finally got to this one I enjoyed it for the most part, but I do think there are still some things that could have been polished.
Now I already had some small doubts since I’m not a huge fan of novels in verse. They usually make me feel like there are some holes in the plot. And this book fell victim to that. Not everything was completely explained. Like for example, a very large part of mental health books with an African American main character, is being able to show the way that saying they have a mental illness or disability isn’t really something older generations believe in. I believe it was talked about a little before she went to the school, but she didn’t tell why this was a thing. And knowing that it’s a big thing in this community, and knowing that they didn’t really explain it in a great way upset me. Overall, I also thought the mental health aspect got lost in this story. Had this been about just a story about this school, I would have given it 5 stars. But because it was pitched to me as being a title about mental health, I thought it should have been more about mental health if that makes sense.
Now the writing style was good. I thought it was an interesting choice to go with a novel in verse with something that seemed like it would have so many layers. But after reading it, I thought it was a pretty good choice. And I say that for one reason only…. The rhyming scheme was bussing. It really worked for this and I enjoyed reading it. Now not every poem rhymed, but for the most part, those that did were my favorites. It helped the story to flow a little more. The only problem was, when there was a break in the rhyming, it seemed there was a break in my gelling with the book.
I also thought that the ending was a bit abrupt. It was like this huge action thing is happening right now and then all of a sudden it’s not. I just thought it was a weird place to end it. I get that it opens up for another book in a series, but do novels in verse actually do things like that?
It wasn’t bad, but I do think that it could have been better in some ways. As it stands, it was a good and interesting story. I would have enjoyed it more going blind into the book and not knowing anything tho.
Overall, I give this
