ARC Tour & Book Review: Crazy

Author: Han Nolan

Title: Crazy

Publisher: Harcourt

Publish Date: Sept 13, 2010

Rating: 5 Stars

Book Blurb: Fifteen-year-old Jason has fallen upon bad times—his mother has died and his father has succumbed to mental illness. As he tries to hold his crazy father and their crumbling home together, Jason relies on a host of imaginary friends for guidance as he stumbles along trying not to draw attention to his father’s deteriorating condition.

Both heartbreaking and funny, CRAZY lives up to the intense and compelling characters Han Nolan is praised for. As Jason himself teeters on the edge of insanity, Nolan uncovers the clever coping system he develops for himself and throws him a lifeline in the guise of friendship

Review: CRAZY is a such a powerful, moving story that I really think everyone should read it, regardless of age.

This is a young adult book that deals with a child coping not only with the loss of his mother, as a result of a stroke, but also the loss of a father, due to severe mental illness.  At age 6,  Jason's father tried to bury him alive! If that isn't a fine example of mental illness, I don't know what it is.

At 15, Jason is thrust into an adult world, while still trying to deal with the rigors of school and he's not succeeding. He hears voices; A Fat Bald Guy with a mustache, Sexy Lady, Crazy Glue, Aunt Bee and the Audience that's like a laugh track.

The story is written from that freaky narrative of voices and Jason, which is sometimes confusing, but once you get into the story it makes perfect sense and the voices/imaginary friends are very endearing, because they really try to help Jason.

Han really does a great job of illustrating Jason's frustrations as well as creating a group of kids in a support group that rally around him and make his life better. Their situations are all messed up and yet together they make things better for each other and in the end make the imaginary friends/voices less necessary.

If you take away one thing from the book it would have to be "Out of everything bad, something good comes."

This book will make you feel a wide range of emotions while reading it; anger, happiness, frustration, sadness, but it will also give you hope, that as long as there are people who care about you, things can get better.

Everyone should read this book!!!