Series: Standalone
Published by: Greenwillow Books
Genre: Mental Illness, Young Adult
Pages: 428
Source: Gift, Hardcover
Rating: ✬✬✬
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.
Favorite Quote
“The rest of the year, I wondered if the point of Christmas was just spending money and getting fat and opening gifts. Indulging.
But when Christmas finally comes, and that warm, tingly, mints-and-sweaters-and-fireplace-fires feeling gathers in the bottom of your stomach, and you’re lying on the floor with all the lights off but the ones on the Christmas tree, and listening to the silence of the snow falling outside, you see the point. For that one instance in time, everything is good in the world. It doesn’t matter if everything isn’t actually good. It’s the one time of the year when pretending is enough.”
Thoughts
One thing I’m struggling about this book is it really a good representation of Schizophrenia? I have no idea because I’ve never dealt with it nor know anyone that is. However, I will say that I think it’s awesome that the author wrote a book about it. The world is filled with all kinds of different people. We all have our struggles. We all have a history. We all have stories that deserve to be told.
I struggled a little bit on what to rate this book. There was some mystery to it that I enjoyed. I liked the characters, but I also didn’t see myself connecting with any of them. I enjoyed the writing, but I didn’t think anything really fun and interested happened in the story.
At first I was a little put off by our main character, Alex. I thought she was kind of mean. She had a problem with name calling people and that bothered me. Eventually she started to grow on me. I also really enjoyed Miles. Miles is such a complex character and he made my heart smile. There were also fun side characters that I wish we could have gotten to know more of.
Over, I thought it was a neat story. It kept me engaged. It was also hard to put the book down. I think the things that bugged me most about this book were some of the events that took place and the ending. I thought the ending was perfect but then it kept going. I didn’t like that.
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