Between the Bliss and Me
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Acclaimed author Lizzy Mason delivers a moving contemporary YA novel about mental illness, young romance, and the impact of family history on one teen’s future, perfect for fans of Jandy Nelson, Robin Benway, and Kathleen Glasgow.
When eighteen-year-old Sydney Holman announces that she has decided to attend NYU, her overprotective mom is devastated. Her decision means she will be living in the Big City instead of commuting to nearby Rutgers like her mom had hoped. It also means she’ll be close to off-limits but dreamy Grayson—a guitar prodigy who is going to Juilliard in the fall and very much isn’t single.
But while she dreams of her new life, Sydney discovers a world-changing truth about her father. She knew he left when she was little due to a drug addiction. But no one told her he had schizophrenia or that he was currently living on the streets of New York City.
She seizes the opportunity to get to know him, to understand who he is and learn what may lie in store for her if she, too, is diagnosed.
Even as she continues to fall for Grayson, Sydney is faced with a difficult decision: Stay close to home so her mom can watch over her, or follow her dreams despite the risks?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An emotional rift opens between white 18-year-old Sydney Holman and her mother when the latter discovers that, instead of living at home in Plainville, N.J., and attending Rutgers, Sydney is planning to attend NYU in the fall, paid for by her affluent paternal grandparents. Now spending part of the summer at her grandparents' ritzy summer home, Sydney grows closer to her best friend's new bandmate, blue-eyed Grayson Armstrong, and learns that her absent father, whom she terms "a drunk and an addict," is schizophrenic and unhoused. The revelation rocks Sydney, leading her to question her own mental health and try to better understand her father. Mason (The Art of Losing) provides a depiction of schizophrenia from a range of lenses, including personal, familial, legal, social, and medical. Some monologues communicating complex issues, such as the state of the U.S. mental health care system, may have better served as an author's note, but Mason's care in portraying the complexity of the mental disorder, as well as her exploration of genetic legacy and inherited emotional baggage, is laudable. Ages 14–up.
