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

[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.)