Wednesday, August 22, 2012

How I made It to Eighteen

How I made It to Eighteen: A Mostly True Story by Tracy White  151 pp.

This is a graphic novel chronicle of a young woman’s voluntary commitment to a mental health facility to get treatment for drug use, cutting, and bulimia. It is based on the author’s real life and is mostly true because, as she says “I’ve skipped over things, moved events around, embellished, and occasionally just plain made things up.” Stacy, the main character is shown in individual therapy, family therapy with her mother, and group therapy with the other facility patients. There is also commentary from "friends" of Stacy's. The book is very well done and you can see the progress that Stacy makes up to her "breakthrough" moment of dumping her boyfriend when things really start to progress. You can also see how pointless some of the questions asked by the medical staff were when trying to get Stacy to talk about her problems. 

How can you not like a book that says in the acknowledgements: “This book was written with the aid of 85% dark chocolate?” It probably wouldn’t hurt to read it that way too.

No comments:

Post a Comment