Halfway House

This is probably in my top 10 favorite bks. Esp b/c of "Exploits and Opinions of Doctor Faustroll Pataphysician - a Neo Scientific Novel" wch was, by far, one of the most original & bizarre novels that I'd read at the time. I often imagine that I'm Jarry reincarnated. Either that or I'm a reincarnation of the sun as "a cool, solid, and homogeneous globe." It depends on wch psychic makes me regress to my past lives. The cheaper ones have me being Jarry's rat-gnawed bike tire but I only partially believe that.

Angie Voorster is 17, a champion swimmer, great student, bright future, and a good family: mom, dad, and younger brother Luke. Then at a swim meet, she suffers a psychotic break, dives to the bottom of the pool during her brother's race, and her father has to go in and get her. Needless to say, life is never the same for any of the family members. They all suffer through the psych hospitals, halfway houses, disappearances. The family does eventually collapse under the weight of all of it, but each of them comes out the other side and makes a new and different life for themselves. An amazing book with real characters who have real flaws that make you come to care about them even more. An honest and open look at a family dealing with the show more mental-illness nightmare. show less

Two things really bothered me about this book. First, the family seems solidly middle class, reasonably intelligent, and interested in doing whatever they can to help their daughter cope. Yet, not one of Angie's family members goes to therapy to learn how to care for themselves or her. It's difficult to feel sympathetic when their family issues are all due to their own poor choices.

Second, the book was released in 2007, yet there are numerous references to things (old school car phone, writing a term paper on a Selectric, lots of audio tapes) that make it clear the story is set in the early 90's. Which would be fine if there was something about the 90's that was important to the plot. It makes it feel like this book was written 15 year show more ago and the author just found a publisher. It's just distracting. show less

Halfway House is about Angie Voorster, a seventeen-year old teenager, who has a breakdown during a swim meet and eventually is diagnosed as being bipolar. The story is not only about how Angie deals with this, but also how her mother, father, and brother deal with it. We follow Angie's journey from hospitals, to halfway houses, to home, and back to hospitals. We also see her father distance himself from the family and turn inward. Her mother has an affair and her brother, Luke, finds comfort with girlfriends. He also struggles with wanting to take care of Angie and wanting to have his own life. I found the book interesting because the Katharine Noel takes us into life with mental illness from every family member's perspective. This is show more not only Angie's story, but that of her family, as well. show less

I found this book quite compelling at times, but wasn't that impressed with the story overall. The book centers on a family and the ramifications they face when the daughter, Angela, becomes mentally ill. Some of the passages are quite interesting, but overall, the story seemed flat.

The strength of this book comes from the raw depictions of mental illness. The reader really gets a strong sense of not only how it feels to live with a mental illness but also how it feels to have a loved one suffering with a mental illness. On the down side, the time line of the story is hard to pin down, there is very little real resolution at the end, and some pieces of the story do not seem to be tied into the progression of the plot at all.

I found this book to be completely absorbing from the very first page. Very well written, this debut offering by Katharine Noel gives a glimpse into the world of mental illness through the eyes of Angie, the affected family member, as well as mother, father and brother, and other significant people along the way. The story line flowed smoothly, following the lives of each person who was touched and affected by Angie's bipolar disorder. An excellent first novel by this gifted writer.