Intense. Really intense.
When choosing books by chance makes you discover a little miracle.
COMUNICAZIONE:
Ho deciso che dei libri che leggo in lingua pubblicherò sia una recensione
nella lingua in cui ho letto il libro che una recensione in italiano. Ecco qui
la recensione in inglese, domani troverete quella in italiano.
TITLE: A tragic kind of wonderful
AUTHOR: Eric Lindstrom
PUBLISHER: Poppy
LANGUAGE: English
PAGES: 281
PLOT:
For sixteen-year-old Mel Hannigan, bipolar disorder makes life
unpredictable. Her latest struggle is balancing her growing feelings in a
new relationship with her instinct to keep everyone at arm's length.
And when a former friend confronts Mel with the truth about the way
their relationship ended, deeply buried secrets threaten to come out and
upend her shaky equilibrium.
As the walls of Mel's
compartmentalized world crumble, she fears the worst--that her friends
will abandon her if they learn the truth about what she's been hiding.
Can Mel bring herself to risk everything to find out?
In A Tragic Kind of Wonderful, Eric Lindstrom, author of the critically acclaimed Not If I See You First, examines the fear that keeps us from exposing our true selves, and the courage it takes to be loved for who we really are.
REVIEW:
I
started reading A tragic kind of wonderful by chance: I loved the title and I
bought it. Actually I felt in love with both the title and the cover, which
looks like a piece of modern art: some spots of colors on a white canvas.
You know, I’ve always been attracted by “chaos”… and in this book I found my
perfect world.
Confusion here is everywhere in Mel’s mind.
Mel Hannigan is 16 years old and she suffers from bipolar disorder, which
makes her life unpredictable. She can’t tell anyone about her disease, she doesn’t want her friends to treat
her differently, like she’s ill.
“Sometimes I wish I knew what I was going to say in time to decide not to.”
Mel is a strong girl and her main feature is her kindness: she’s always ready
to help everyone around her, no matter what. Even when she’s sad or angry. And due to her bipolar disorder, her feeling
any type of emotion could become a problem: when she’s not under meds or when
she lives a particular event (like a fight or a date), all her moods are
magnified. Her sadness becomes depression, her happiness turns into excitement
and her anger makes her a fury.
At first I found it difficult to really understand her, but after some pages I was
able to empathize with her: it was wonderful, intense and quite unsettling at
the same time… I got how she thought and felt, nevertheless I could see what
her family was living because of her. I felt sorry for them all.
“You're not bipolar, Mel. You have a bipolar disorder. You also have
vibrant blue eyes, a wonderful personality, a tendency to undervalue
yourself, and many, many other things. None of those things are you."
"What am I, then?"
"A person who changes and grows all the time.”