Suicide Notes

Suicide Notes

Author: Michael Thomas Ford

Rating: 3.5/5

Reviewer: Emily

Summary: Fifteen-year-old Jeff wakes up on New Year’s Day to find himself in the hospital. Make that the psychiatric ward. With the nutjobs. Never mind the bandages on his wrists, clearly this is all a huge mistake. Jeff is perfectly fine, perfectly normal – not like the other kids in the hospital with him. They’ve got problems. But a funny thing happens as Jeff’s forty-five day sentence drags on: the crazies start to seem less crazy…

Review: This book was surprisingly light, considering the subject matter - so much that I initially found it flippantly so. For a person who had just attempted suicide, the main character, Jeff, didn’t seem to realize the depth of his situation. While I understand that it is realistic for a period of denial to follow an event like this, the way that it was written made it very difficult for me, as a reader, to grasp the true gravity of the situation.

It didn’t help that I found Jeff to be irritatingly sarcastic in a way that I think was meant to be used as comedic relief although I just didn’t find his jokes funny. With that in mind, I had to remind myself that this book is told from the point of view of a 15 year old, and I started to think of him as a little brother. An annoying little brother, yes, but still one that I cared for and wanted a happy ending for.

Near the end, the pieces did begin to fall into place, albeit very suddenly. It almost felt like the answers came out of nowhere; it was something that I really was not suspecting, and I don’t feel that there were many, if any, clues. Still, they brought a decent understanding to the book and some real emotion, which was a relief. This was bittersweet, and also my favorite part, because I felt like it was real.

Another thing that I did enjoy about this book is that it helped to break through the stigmas of mental illness as “the crazies start[ed] to seem less crazy.” I think that it’s very important for people to realize that someone with a mental illness is still a regular person, even if they are labeled as “crazy” and it would be very helpful to someone who may be struggling with any of the issues mentioned.

Although this book wasn’t my cup of tea, I truly believe that it would be well-suited to people closer to the main character’s age, or to people who are looking for something to ease them into such a serious topic as this.