Wendy Darling's Reviews > Suicide Notes

Believe it or not, this is actually a really funny book. You wouldn't think so based on the title and the subject, but 15-year-old Jeff will have you laughing out loud throughout his story. He's in a mental hospital because he tried to slit his wrists on New Year's Eve, he's surrounded by kids who are clearly crazier than he is, and his doctor (nicknamed "Cat Poop") doesn't seem to understand that there's nothing wrong with him and won't leave him alone. Neither will the various patients who come and go who keep wanting to fool around with him in the wee hours of the night.

All Jeff wants to do is to do his time and to get home--partly because his sister Amanda might call dibs on his vacant room. And he does not want to talk about what happened with his best friend Allie, and how their relationship changed after she started dating her boyfriend Burke.

The novel is set up so that each chapter follows a single day in Jeff's 45-day treatment program. As the narrator, Jeff is hilariously dead-pan, self-deprecating, and easy to listen to. He is also kind, curious, confused, and sad beneath the typical teenage guy "I'm fine" attitude, but this takes a little while to come out. What's really interesting about the book being from Jeff's point of view is that the author reveals Jeff's avoidance and self-delusion without our main character really being aware of it, which is a pretty neat trick. And it's all all done with a deft hand and an unerring eye for genuine emotion.

I'm still undecided as to whether I should go into detail about what this book is actually about, but I will say that it's pretty important that readers who go into this story are fairly open-minded. In the middle of the drama involving the various patients at the hospital, there are frank discussions about (and depictions of) suicide, abuse, identity, sexuality, and self-loathing that are realistically and honestly portrayed. I did, however, appreciate the author's choice to make Jeff's secret both more complex and less of an extreme situation (view spoiler)[i.e., it was not abuse in his case that led to his suicide attempt (hide spoiler)], as I think it's important that we see more stories from this standpoint. The confusion and embarrassment and hurt and fear can sometimes be enough.

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Excerpts:

Maybe I can convince my parents to move to France. No one in France cares if you tried to kill yourself. In fact, I think they like you better because you're all tragic.

It's not like I've never jacked off. I'm fifteen years old. Of course I do it. Any guy who says he doesn't is lying. That would be like having the coolest video game ever and never playing it. No one's that stupid.

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The humor and the depth in this exceptionally well-written novel felt incredibly true to life and poignant. I worried about this boy and his denial about himself and I was anxious about whether the people in his life would accept him. We don't get to read stories like this nearly often enough, but they are such an important part of the human experience and I hope we'll see more of them.

I also really appreciated the hopeful and optimistic tone that this novel takes, however. It's nice to be reminded not only that there are kids out there who are hurting, but also that there are people out there who care.