Mental Health Representation In Books

Mental Health awareness and representation is really important in media be that films, TV or books, especially since there’s is such a negative stigma surrounding mental health problems. And books (and films and TV) that give it representation and do it well are AMAZING.

The Boy Who Steals Houses

This book was written by someone who deals with her own social anxieties and it just read so perfectly for rep that it was clearly based on personal feelings and senses of anxiety. Both Sam and Avery have anxiety but it’s shown in different ways. While Sam internally feels like he’s dying, Avery reacts in a physical way. This different representation of anxiety made me so happy. I get so sick of the over use of people’s responses to anxiety with “just get over it” like ?? nO ? But The Boy Who Steals Houses gave this mental illness a bright light and rep and ah I loved it. It makes me so gosh darn happy. 

Sam is only fifteen but he and his autistic older brother, Avery, have been abandoned by every relative he’s ever known. Now Sam’s trying to build a new life for them. He survives by breaking into empty houses when their owners are away, until one day he’s caught out when a family returns home. To his amazement this large, chaotic family takes him under their wing – each teenager assuming Sam is a friend of another sibling. Sam finds himself inextricably caught up in their life, and falling for the beautiful Moxie. But Sam has a secret, and his past is about to catch up with him.

Am I Normal Yet?

Evie has OCD and spends the majority of this book dealing with it and trying to keep it hidden, afraid of people judging her. I feel OCD doesn’t get as much rep in the media as other mental illness do and thus people have such an odd view of it, seeing it as being just a neat and tidy person, whereas this book showed so many different sides of it. It showed the reader how much of affect it has on an individual, how she sees herself and the way she behaves. Am I Normal Yet? helps to show all sides of OCD and explain it so well throughout the story. 

All Evie wants is to be normal. She’s almost off her meds and at a new college where no one knows her as the girl-who-went-crazy. She’s even going to parties and making friends. There’s only one thing left to tick off her list… But relationships are messy – especially relationships with teenage guys. They can make any girl feel like they’re going mad. And if Evie can’t even tell her new friends Amber and Lottie the truth about herself, how will she cope when she falls in love?

We Were Liars

Throughout We Were Liars, the main character, Cadence, is left in the dark about a big and traumatic event, thus leaving the reader in the dark as well. All she knows is something bad happened a few summers earlier leaving her traumatised. I’m not gonna say much more than that because, ya know, spoilers and I would HATE to spoil this book for anyone. 

We are the Liars. We are beautiful, privileged and live a life of carefree luxury. We are cracked and broken. A story of love and romance. A tale of tragedy. Which are lies? Which is truth? You decide.

The Perks Of Being A Wallflower

This book hits all my feels and makes me cry. Charlie has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the aftermath of his friend’s death and spends the book making friends and adjusting to a new school while dealing with his personal internal issues. This book perfectly demonstrates a teenager not only dealing with the problems that come with moving up to High School, but also doing so with a mental illness. We are shown everything this book through letters from Charlie to the reader, showing us everything he feels throughout the story from his first hand account of all the events. Charlie doesn’t hide from the fact that he lives with a mental illness, making references to his time in hospital and such and describes that he’s doing the best he can despite what he carries around with him. 

Charlie is a freshman. And while he’s not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it. Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mix tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. But he can’t stay on the sideline forever. Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a deeply affecting coming-of-age story that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.

Thirteen Reasons Why

While a lot of people argue that this book isn’t a great representation for mental health and suicide, I disagree. Hannah is depressed, and no, she isn’t a spoiled princess and things didn’t go her way (yes, I have seen people describe her like this). The point of this book is you can’t judge someone’s mental health and how they feel because you just can’t understand. I liked that this book was graphic and went all in with the depression and suicide, because depression is another one of those illnesses that people use as a throwaway comment, saying they’re depressed when they really aren’t. AND media so rarely shows teen suicide, that this was just great in this sense. 

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker–his classmate and crush–who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah’s voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he’ll find out why. Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah’s pain, and as he follows Hannah’s recorded words throughout his town, what he discovers changes his life forever.