“My doctor said it best: what makes us human is that we have emotions, some good and some bad, some comfortable, and some not. If we didn’t, we’d be robots and nothing in life would have meaning. It’s when we go in the wrong direction for too long and can’t course correct on our own that we need to find what helps us do that.” – Kelly Jensen, The Light Bulb, the Broom, and the Work They Don’t Tell You About from (Don’t) Call Me Crazy

 

don't call me crazy

(Don’t) Call Me Crazy edited by Kelly Jensen 

Review by: Ivy 

On Sale Now!

 

In the ground-breaking (Don’t) Call Me Crazy, 33 authors, actors, artists, and activists come together to give you the scoop on their own mental health and inform the public on how to get involved and take action to destroy our society’s mental illness stigma.

This anthology was extremely original, mainly for the fact that the stories are not fictional – they’re all real accounts of people’s experiences with mental illness, which is a fresh voice when compared to the countless fictional stories I’ve read.

Another reason this book is a great YA pick is that it includes stories from bestselling authors like Libba Bray, Adam Silvera, Victoria Schwab, and Shaun David Hutchinson. You can see their teen-tinged insight in their sections, their writing still reaching out to young adults when writing from their own (adult) perspectives.

The diverse perspectives (Don’) Call Me Crazy supplies are something I’ve never seen before, portraying mental illness from every possible angle. Also, it doesn’t focus on one kind of illness: it covers everything from anxiety to trichotillomania to bipolar disorder to everything outside and in-between. Mental illness is a spectrum, and it’s often hard to categorize feelings, but the higher diversity of labels we put out there, the more people can begin to understand what it’s like to be crazy.

Rating: Five Crazy Fives/5

 

For Fans Of: More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera, Turtles All The Way Down by John Green, Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens

 

Favorite Quotes:

 

  • “How much pain and devastation could we avoid by fixing the root of the problem instead of cowering away in fear?”

 

 

  • “Paper has always listened. When I was young and full of shame and loneliness, I could write down my pain and the paper took it… But no matter what happened, I always had control over what I put on paper.”

 

 

  • “Don’t let the Muggle-like thoughts dim your magic, dear!”

 

 

  • “We all have things – and sometimes people – we are unable to look in the eye.”