Sixteen-year-old Mel Hannigan has bipolar disorder and she is learning to balance life, relationships, and feelings. Thinking that she will be abandoned when her friends find out things she has been pushing down, parts of her past, and also parts of who she is—what makes her Mel—she keeps them at a distance, even going so far as to terminate friendships.
This was a mixed bag for me. While I applaud Lindstrom for tackling such an important topic, especially for this genre, it fell short. There was a lot going on and this distracted from the beautiful raw emotion that should have been capitalized on. There were characters that took away from the main story line, and then there were characters, like Nolan, that were not explored enough.
Without sounding harsh, I found Mel to be bright, confident, and honest, but the way she tracked her feelings was incredibly juvenile. This is where her relationship with the retired doctor could have been fleshed out—this was a flaw in the story in that there was a beautiful and honest relationship that was never explored and this could have been the perfect vehicle to her memories of Nolan.
All-in-all, a good read, and I would like to read Not If I See You First.
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