Thursday, July 13, 2006

This is my "People Have Problems...and So Do You" booklist.
I know I am forgetting some amazing books, but will add more soon. Feel free to add comments of other books I forgot.

Teen Angst? Naaah...: A Quasi-Autobiography
Ned Vizzini
A collection of essays written by the author from age fifteen to seventeen in which he shares impressions of school, sports, cool people, boring people, friends, family, money, music, and obsessions.

It's Kind of a Funny Story
Ned Vizzini
Craig Gilner is a gifted 15-year-old boy who works hard to get into a fiercely competitive high school, then crumbles under the intense academic pressure. Blindsided by his inability to excel and terrified by thoughts of suicide, Craig checks into a psychiatric hospital where he finally gets the help he needs.

Luna
Julie Anne Peters
"This novel sensitively portrays the life of a transgender teen through the eyes of a sympathetic younger sister," wrote PW.

Skin
Adrienne Maria Vrettos
Fourteen-year-old Donnie's older sister, Karen, has always been the one person in his life on whom he could totally depend. But as Karen slowly slips away in the grip of an eating disorder, Donnie finds himself alone in facing the trauma of his parents' faltering marriage and his new life as an outcast at school.

Burn Journals
Brent Runyon
Runyon's first-person account of his close brush with death and his painful rehabilitation is reminiscent of Girl, Interrupted and Running with Scissors.

Talking in the Dark
Billy Merrell
Merrell lays open the journal of his life, taking readers with him through his parents' divorce, his awakening sexuality, and his quest to find love and acceptance while discovering himself in the process.

Perfect
Natasha Friend
Following the death of her father, a thirteen-year-old uses bulimia as a way to avoid her mother's and ten-year-old sister's grief, as well as her own.

Cut
Patricia McCormick
While confined to a mental hospital, thirteen-year-old Callie slowly comes to understand some of the reasons behind her self-mutilation, and gradually starts to get better.

Crank
Ellen Hopkins
This devastating story, told in poetry, is even more frightening because it is based on the author's own experiences with her addicted daughter.

Wild Roses
Deb Caletti
Seventeen-year-old Cassie Morgan has a secret: She's living with a time bomb (a.k.a. her stepfather, Dino Cavalli). To the public, Dino is a world-renowned violinist and composer. To Cassie, he's an erratic, self-centered bully.

Stop Pretending: What Happened when My Big Sister Went Crazy
Sonya Sones
A younger sister has a difficult time adjusting to life after her older sister has a mental breakdown.

Speak
Laurie Halse Anderson
When Melinda Sordino's friends discover she called the police to quiet a party, they ostracize her, turning her into an outcast -- even among kids she barely knows. But even worse than the harsh conformity of high-school cliques is a secret that you have to hide.

Smack
Melvin Burgess
After running away from their troubled homes, two English teenagers move in with a group of squatters in the port city of Bristol and try to find ways to support their growing addiction to heroin.

Damage
Amanda M. Jenkins
Seventeen-year-old football hero Austin, trying to understand the inexplicable depression that has drained his interest in life, thinks that he has found relief in a girl who seems very special.

Shattering Glass
Gail Giles
When Rob, the charismatic leader of the senior class, turns the school nerd into Prince Charming, his actions lead to unexpected violence.

You Remind Me Of You
Eireann Corrigan
Struggling for years with eating disorders, in and out of treatment facilities, Eireann Corrigan is teetering on the brink of no return when her high school boyfriend attempts suicide.

Detour: My Bipolar Road Trip in 4-D
Lizzie Simon
What is it like to be "bipolar"? Lizzie Simon, a 23-year-old afflicted with this form of mental ailment, goes on a road trip in search of others like her and tells all in this frank and surprising memoir.

Kissing Doorknobs
Terry Spencer Hesser, A. J. Allen (Afterword)
Fourteen-year-old Tara describes how her increasingly strange compulsions begin to take over her life and affect her relationships with her family and friends.

Just Checking
Emily Colas
A frank and funny first-person account of living with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

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