Top 5 Wednesday- Books featuring Mental Health

Hello readers!

Today's Top 5 Topic is books featuring mental health.

May is Mental Health awareness month, and in 2019 it is a hot topic, even in literature. I personally think it's great that the conversation of mental health is so popular in our everyday lives because it increases awareness. We all are navigating this life so differently and I think that is something we should all be respectful of in how we interact with each other. 

1. Elena, Vanishing- When starting this topic, the first book to come to mind was Elena, Vanishing. This book focuses on a girl suffering through an eating disorder and how her behaviors complicate her life. I would warn anyone interested in reading this that it may be a little triggering, especially towards the end. As Elena falls farther into her disease, the depression she writes about is very up front. I have personally struggled with anxiety and depression so when I got to the few chapters before her final journey to recovery, I cried because the feelings she was describing were sooo familiar to how I felt deep down where I've never vocalized those emotions before. Elena's story is very interesting to read because it sheds light to a thought process I don't think is obvious to those living along side with a mental illness.

2. A Court of Frost & Starlight- Listen, we know these books touch on mental illness. That's not new. What I want to specifically talk about though is Nesta's PTSD. As easy it is to hate her and be fed up with her character, and as much as it seems that she doesn't want anyone's help, she is clearly hurting. What I found the most refreshing about Nesta's POV was that this was a new type of mental illness that I know I haven't seen in specifically the YA genre. It's also a behavior that I think is harder for readers to want to sympathize with, which to me makes the challenge more rewarding. Nesta has become my favorite character in the last two books, simply because she is so complicated. 

3. Thirteen Reasons Why- I read this book 10 years ago when it first came out. Between the TV show, the book, who's absorbing it, etc, I think it's kind of obvious that there is a conversation to be had about mental health. Because there is such divided opinions, I'm going to keep this short. Hannah suffered prior to her death with coping with trauma. Although I find it unhealthy to 'push blame' regarding why she killed her self, there are a lot of steps that she is calling out that led to her decision. The message that Hannah is trying to send is one that we are starting to hear more commonly of how our actions have consequences and we may not know what another person is going through. The execution of that message in this book is definitely up for debate.

4. Crank- This is one of my favorite series to read regarding drug abuse. Weird sentence, I know.  However, as large as these books are, they are so interestingly written outside of the fact that they are in prose format. Ellen does a really good job of getting your mind to imagine the grittiness of substance abuse as a girl at her daughter's age. The slimy people she surrounds herself, the unsafe places she finds comfort in. Although I can't speak on if the presentation of substance abuse is accurate, I did think that the events in this story are fairly similar to what I have experienced as someone who knows others that struggled with substance abuse in High school. 

5. Fifty Shades of Grey- Love or hate these books, I think Christian clearly has a relationship with Mental illness. For anyone who read the first book and quit, in book 3 its very obvious with the introduction of his therapist. Christian suffers from some severe PTSD from his childhood and as obvious that may be, I don't know if the author did enough research to portray PTSD accurately or in the correct way. My main issue is that by writing these novels was that although she brought some awareness to PTSD, it also came off very romanticized. 

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