Review: A Tragic Kind of Wonderful

A Tragic Kind of Wonderful
by Eric Lindstrom

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: February 7, 2017

In A TRAGIC KIND OF WONDERFUL, Mel Hannigan is a sixteen-year-old girl living with bipolar disorder and struggling to make sense of the complex web of relationships surrounding her. While struggling with the death of her brother, Nolan, Mel carefully organizes her world in order to keep her feelings in check. Author Eric Lindstrom sheds light on the difficulty of living with bipolar disorder while also showcasing Mel’s determination to not be defined by her mental illness. While I personally don’t have experience with bipolar disorder, I found Mel very easy to connect with due to a somewhat weird but very effective combination of cynicism and optimism that enriches her as a character. While this book certainly has a romantic angle, it is primarily focused on Mel’s personal journey, which helps to overcome the more cliched love story. I would highly recommend this book to fans of ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES and ELEANOR AND PARK.

Review: Not If I See You First

Not If I See You First 

by Eric Lindstrom 

Publication Date: December 1, 2015

Publisher: Poppy Books 

There are a lot of great books that have the ability to completely take me out of my everyday life and transport me to another world entirely. But every so often I'll come across a rare book that gives me a whole new perspective on my own reality even after I've finished reading it. NOT IF I SEE YOU FIRST did just that. It is the story of Parker Grant, a girl who loves to run. Not unlike other high school students, her sport is the one thing she can count on while she faces a number of other problems. Struggling to maintain her childhood friendships, figuring out impossibly complicated boys, and making it through family hardships; all things many people might deal with, yet for Parker one thing is drastically different --she's blind.  Lindstrom does a great job of giving the reader a true sense of the world Parker is living in, by enabling us to experience it the way she would; without any sense of sight or visual descriptions. The power of this book for me lies in the fact that I felt I knew each and every character in the story so well; all the layers of their personality and who they truly were. And yet I had never been given a single physical description of them. I recommend this book for anyone, and I promise you will take away from it more than just an incredibly moving story, but also a new way to look at the world and everyone around you.