If you have mental disorders in your family, you will especially relate to the themes touched on in this story. Bipolar disorder is a horrible illness that wrecks lives and families. Thankfully, the drugs to treat this are getting better than they were in the time period of this book's setting.
Another theme explored in this book is parents and their favoritism for one child over others of their children. This, combined with mental disorders, can be deadly. When a society, and families, refuse to admit to and treat mental illness, that's when the United States suffers as a country with one of the highest rated of gun violence in the world. Well, the NRA doesn't help.
Kudos to the author for a well-written work that deals with these difficult themes. ( )

I appreciated the author's afterward about raising awareness of mental illness, but the book itself read more like a lurid parable about the potential cost of knowing someone with bipolar disorder. There's some well-observed stuff in here, but I was ultimately baffled by the ending. I suspect I am not the target audience. ( )

A fine debut novel about a situation faced by so many families: how far can or should you go to help when mental illness strikes? Rikki and Stacy are African American "Irish twins", born 11 months apart. Stacy lives in her older sister's talented shadow and with the spectre of their mother's blatant favoritism for Rikki. But she knows from childhood that Rikki is not "sensitive", but delusional. Her parents ignore the symptoms and charge Stacy with Rikki's care.

Rikki goes on and off her medications, marries, and has a successful career. She cycles through various frames of mind - religious, celibacy, vegetarian - all the while with Stacy as observer and monitor. Rikki's life is saved by Stacy's constant intervention, but at what cost? Stacy herself marries and makes her living as a crossword puzzle writer, all the while being completely puzzled by how to live her own life without ceding to her mother's blindness about Rikki and her own strong love for her sister.

There are puzzles about this family - the mother's complete refusal to admit that Rikki needs treatment, and the impact of the father's early death - but the reader can only question and sympathize. This is a heartrendingly unforgettable book. ( )

Stacy has been taking care of her sister Rikki for as long as she can remember. The only kids of a religious and troubled family, the two try to keep up a semblance of normalcy despite Rikki’s mental illness. After a suicide attempt in her youth, it’s clear that Rikki’s issues are serious.

As they grow up, Stacy begins to lose herself and her personal life in the drama that her sister creates. Bright and beautiful, most people don’t see Rikki’s struggle at first glance. Her loving husband Matt even minimizes its severity.

Hall’s unflinching look at one family's struggle with mental illness is a powerful one. The reason it seems to work well is that you're seeing the situation through the eyes of the sister. She is not the one with the illness, but we are able to see the havoc it wreaks in everyone’s life through her experiences. It colors every single day of her life. The overwhelming responsibility she feels to protect and care for her sister puts a strain on her relationship with her husband, friends and family members.

Some of the plot feels melodramatic, but I think that’s intentional. Everything with Rikki’s disease is either high or low and so there’s not a lot of room for thoughtful consideration in the mix. Her moods are driven by guilt, rage, jealousy, remorse, etc. The most disturbing aspect of the disease is that some people around her, like her mother, would prefer to pretend there’s no real problem.

BOTTOM LINE: I found the meat of the story to work a bit better than the ending. I felt like it turned a bit into a cautionary tale with a melodramatic tone, but I still got a lot out of it.

"It's difficult to accept that invisible, indestructible things can haunt a person."

"I didn't believe what I had just said, but I couldn't resist the argument. College does that, you know." ( )

I absolutely loved this book. I actually found it one day when I was on the WB website for the Gilmore Girls it was actually on the list of books that Rory read during the show.