Humming Whispers, by Angela Johnson

[rachelmanija]

A touching YA novel about Sophy, a fourteen-year-old dancer, and her older sister Nicole, who is schizophrenic. Nicole's illness emerged when she was fourteen, and Sophy is terrified that she too will have her life swept away by mental illness.

Johnson's delicate touch with serious subjects is evident, but this novel doesn't reach the transcendant heights of The First Part Last (which I highly recommend); it's more of a well-characterized, well-written problem novel. Unusually for the genre, I didn't find it depressing, though now I'm not sure why since not only does Nicole not get cured or even have her illness better-managed, but someone else randomly suffers a stroke! I guess Johnson's genuine hope for better things and sense of ordinary joys shines through.

Click here to buy it from Amazon: Humming Whispers (Black Apples)

Comments

[oyceter]

I liked Bird and A Cool Midnight a lot; they skew younger, but they're less sad and have the same love of the ordinary that I really like about Johnson.

[wordkink.livejournal.com]

What I'm really interested in is how the mental illness is treated. Working with mental health consumers they're always desperate for even slightly positive portrayals of those who suffer from mental illness and I know that more than a few of my clients have kids and would really appreciate a book they could pass on to them. Do you think that this book is understanding enough to fit that bill?

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I thought Nicole was very sympathetic, and her illness was treated realistically yet fairly positively under the circumstances: she's severely ill and subject to unpredictable relapses, but she has a family and a boyfriend and goes to college when she can.

All the same, I'd read it first! (It's very short.)