Mental Health America celebrates Mental Health Awareness Month every May. Since 1949, their goal is to reach people and increase positive portrayals of mental health. They work to provide tools and activities to work towards positive mental health. Since mental health still has a negative connotation, understanding is important.
Books can be a great way to combat this negativity surrounding mental health. Recently, YA has had a lot of great books published with positive portrayals of mental health. This is important for teens especially, as teen depression is on the rise. I always try to tag the books I review about mental health, and actively search out positive portrayals.
Mental Health Awareness Books
Words on Bathroom Walls by Julia Walton
This portrays a main character who is struggling with schizophrenia, something not included a lot in YA books. Written in a series of letters to the teen’s therapist, readers can easily see Adam’s struggles. Overall, Walton actively works against the negativity that surrounds schizophrenia in the media.
Turtles All the Way Down by John Green
Green pulls from his own experiences with OCD to write Aza’s story. Overall, the strongest aspect of this book is Green’s ability to show thought spirals within the book. Most often, OCD is portrayed as people who like things neat. In reality, it’s a lot more than that.
The Art of Starving by Sam J. Miller
When looking at books dealing with anorexia, too often they just deal with women. However, men deal with anorexia as well. Miller portrays Matt’s struggle with anorexia in a realistic way, showing how much he struggles with his own body image.
They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera
Adam Silvera is excellent at creating realistic portrayals of mental health within his books. This book in particular really focuses on the anxiety of one of the main characters, Mateo. He’s afraid to do things because of the negative results; he slowly learns to get over this fear throughout the course of the book.
The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
This book also deals with anxiety, but in a slightly different way. Not only does Mikey get stuck in OCD like loops, his anxiety also makes him believe he’s on the outside of his friend group. He’s expendable. his plight throughout the book is extremely relatable to other teens that might feel similar to Mikey.
I appreciate this post! As a teenager, I consider mental health awareness especially important in schools. I haven’t read any of these books, but I am particularly looking forward to reading Turtles All the Way Down. One of my former English teachers read it and really enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing! :)claire @ <a href=”http://www.clairefyblog.com”>clairefy</a>
Aww yay! I’m so glad to hear that. 😊 Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on Turtles!