About the Book
“Anybody can look at you. It's quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see.”
Review
It was obvious this was written by someone who understands living with mental illness. There were many times something would be explained and I would feel it so strongly, because I understand what those urges and those intrusive thoughts are like. Although what I deal with is not the same as Aza, it was incredibly similar. And it made me take a long look at myself and how I handle certain situations. Especially from the point of view of the people around me.
I have OCD. Not the fun "Oh no, my room has to be cleaned all the time and everything must look pretty" type of OCD they show on the television... It's called obsessive compulsive disorder not clean all the things disorder. Anyway, I get the intrusive thoughts that won't go away. They can be exhausting to deal with. And I have certain ticks I need to do or pretty much my entire world will crumble and I can't go to sleep. Even though I know it's ridiculous and unnecessary, I still have to do them. I have reactions to stressful situation that end up causing me physical harm because I'm trying to make things better, but I'm just making it worse. And in the back of my mind I know I am making it worse, but I'm also thinking that if I keep doing what I'm doing everything will magically get fixed. There's a whole more to it, but that's a basic idea of my life.
Anyway, I felt that discussing the mental illness aspect of this book was the most important part of it. There's also a whole lot of other things that make it awesome.
Aza's best friend, Daisy, is good times. She is super into fanfiction, in a way that makes me seem like a semi-casual reader of it... and I'm not. And I liked her a lot. Although she does things that make me wanna smack her, I thought she was a perfect balance for Aza. And her specific fanfiction pairing amused the hell out of me.
The romance in this is in the background. Even though I like Davis, he wasn't the focus of this story and I appreciated that. His story is hella messed up though. I'm just saying. But he's good people. And so I tolerated what little of this book focused on the romance between him and Aza, even though I wasn't really feeling it.
Okay - so to sum all of this up. It's a good book. Don't read it for the romance. Definitely read this to have a better grasp of what someone who suffers from a mental illness goes through.