The Place Between Breaths

This is the story of a young woman with a mental illness, inherited from her mother. The story progresses as a straightforward story at times, then meanders back to the past or maybe to the future, maybe memories or truths or alternate realities. I knew not to expect normal but I didn't quite expect this.

This story definitely got me thinking, but I'm still unsure how to put the threads together and I think that was the plan.

This was a structurally unusual and compelling story. However, in the end I feel like the depiction of mental illness is designed for maximal mystery plot effectiveness rather than in a way that's true to mental illness or that feels realistic for the characters. The stigma against people with schizophrenia is already so substantial that further misinformation is potentially damaging.

Wow, what an incredibly effing depressing book. I’ve never experienced a more hopeless ending. I know that representation and education are important but this just did not seem like the way to go. I was confused for a big chunk of it, and found myself rereading parts searching for some sort of clarification that just wasn’t coming. Which in a lot of cases was intentional, given the circumstances.

teen fiction (mental health/schizophrenia)
I read to page 26 or so--thought I could follow at least the thread of the friend's unplanned pregnancy, but mostly it is a schizophrenic's unexplained, nonlinear thoughts--the book jacket says "a spiral of delusion and DNA that is heartbreaking yet hopeful." Really, a spiral of delusion AND DNA? I like genetic science as much as the next person, but that does not sound like a winner--though I appreciate what the author was trying to do for mental health awareness. It just was not a readable story for me.