One of the prompts of the 2016 Read Harder Challenge is to read a book with a main character that has a mental illness. As someone who suffers from anxiety and depression and knows that there are so many complicated and unrepresented mental illnesses out there, this was an important prompt for me. I decided to read a book about an illness I know very little about - schizophrenia.
Synopsis
"Reality, it turns out, is often not what you perceive it to be—sometimes, there really is someone out to get you. Made You Up tells the story of Alex, a high school senior unable to tell the difference between real life and delusion. This is a compelling and provoking literary debut that will appeal to fans of Wes Anderson, Silver Linings Playbook, and Liar.
Alex fights a daily battle to figure out the difference between reality and delusion. Armed with a take-no-prisoners attitude, her camera, a Magic 8-Ball, and her only ally (her little sister), Alex wages a war against her schizophrenia, determined to stay sane long enough to get into college. She’s pretty optimistic about her chances until classes begin, and she runs into Miles. Didn’t she imagine him? Before she knows it, Alex is making friends, going to parties, falling in love, and experiencing all the usual rites of passage for teenagers. But Alex is used to being crazy. She’s not prepared for normal. Funny, provoking, and ultimately moving, this debut novel featuring the quintessential unreliable narrator will have readers turning the pages and trying to figure out what is real and what is made up."
(Goodreads)
Alex fights a daily battle to figure out the difference between reality and delusion. Armed with a take-no-prisoners attitude, her camera, a Magic 8-Ball, and her only ally (her little sister), Alex wages a war against her schizophrenia, determined to stay sane long enough to get into college. She’s pretty optimistic about her chances until classes begin, and she runs into Miles. Didn’t she imagine him? Before she knows it, Alex is making friends, going to parties, falling in love, and experiencing all the usual rites of passage for teenagers. But Alex is used to being crazy. She’s not prepared for normal. Funny, provoking, and ultimately moving, this debut novel featuring the quintessential unreliable narrator will have readers turning the pages and trying to figure out what is real and what is made up."
(Goodreads)
A Truly Unreliable Narrator
I feel like the market has been flooded with books featuring unreliable narrators ever since Gone Girl hit the scene. It's a very common device used in thrillers, where we can never truly trust our protagonist. In Made You Up, Alex isn't trying to deceive us or lie to us. She is truly unaware of what is real and what isn't because of her paranoid schizophrenia. She questions everything she sees and so we question it with her. We cannot depend on Alex to tell us the truth because, unfortunately, she can't see it herself. Alex tells the story as she sees and experiences it. It may not be the truth, but it is her truth.
So That Plot Then...
While the majority of the book has to do with Alex's struggle between hallucinations and real life, there is also a lot going on at her high school. She's part of an after-school club full of delinquents as a part of community service. She's trying to hide her past from the students because she knows they won't see her the same once they find out the truth. She might be falling for a guy who has pranked her relentlessly since she first arrived (and she's has not been afraid to retaliate). Unfortunately, I found the story-line where Alex and two of her friends try to figure out their principal's strange obsession with the school's scoreboard strange and off-point. That was super hard for me to follow. It almost felt unnecessary, and I wish we had continued to focus on Alex's personal situations as opposed to this weird segue. Then again, they might have been part of her hallucinations. How much of what I read was actually happening?
The Delicate Handling of Mental Illness
Schizophrenia is not an illness commonly explored in the media and I feel like it is easily misunderstood. People often confuse schizophrenia with multiple-personality disorder. It's not an easy thing to write about, but I believe that Zappia did an excellent job. Because Alex is our narrator, we see the things that scare her or confuse her, as well as the real world. It was important to make the experience accurate and handle it with care, and Zappia did a lot of research (she answered questions about this here). Alex's schizophrenia isn't used as a plot device and it isn't her defining characteristic. The book is the story of her living a slightly strange teenage life while trying to maintain a stable mentality.
Overall
3 Stars.
It is well-written, especially for a debut novel, and it has a unique plot with a narrator that is often not seen in the media, especially YA. Though I had a hard time staying focused and following along with the story, I think that was the intended point.
It is well-written, especially for a debut novel, and it has a unique plot with a narrator that is often not seen in the media, especially YA. Though I had a hard time staying focused and following along with the story, I think that was the intended point.
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