When Jason Milwaukee’s best friend, Sunshine, disappears from the face of the earth, the whole town, including Jason, starts searching for her. But the insistent voices in Jason’s head won’t let him get to the heart of the mystery—he’s schizophrenic, and the voices make it hard to know what is real and what is not. As the chase becomes more panicked, Jason’s meds start wearing off, and he is looking more and more guilty. But of what, exactly?
Both brilliantly witty and intensely honest, this poignant novel draws upon the author’s many years as an adolescent psychologist, but it’s Vaught’s powerful voice and expertly crafted mystery that will keep the pages turning. (From Goodreads)
Best Bits: First off, I think I should just say that I appreciate the uniqueness of the characters in Freaks Like Us. Yes, Jason and his friends have mental disorders, but as Vaught said in my interview with her, this isn't a book about life with schizophrenia. It's a book about friendship, love, and trust. The thing is, I think readers will gain a greater understanding of what it means to be diagnosed with something like schizophrenia. I'm not saying that the exact symptoms Jason experiences over the course of the book should be generalized to all people with schizophrenia. What I'm saying is that I hope this can help combat the stigma, and allows teens to look at how they treat people who are classified by society as "different" (even though they aren't different at all). Ok, off of my soap box...the story kept me on the edge of my seat. I literally read this in a night because I had to find out what happened to Sunshine! Vaught did an excellent job making me care about her characters, and keeping my in suspense.
Nit Picks: Since this book is a fast read, it didn't always get as in-depth as I'd like. I really wanted to know more about the characters. The flashbacks from Jason's perspective did provide some insight into his friends and family, but I really wanted more. The ending, while shocking, is one that doesn't explain everything to the reader. I got just enough information to draw my own conclusions about what would happen to the characters. I know that's a pet peeve of some readers, so just be aware that it isn't going to spell it out.
Freaks Like Us
By Susan Vaught
Published by Bloomsbury USA
240 Pages
Purchased
Rating: B
Check out my interview with Susan Vaught here
Susan Vaught is the author of numerous young-adult novels. Her newest, Freaks Like Us, is out now!
1. Tell us a bit about yourself and your road to being published.
I started writing as soon as I could spell words, and loved creating short stories with big twists, poetry, and creepy, scary things to freak out my friends. I majored in English and Psychology, and ultimately went for my doctorate and psychology, writing “on the side” when I had time. I dabbled with getting published in my 20’s, but went after it seriously in my 30’s with a few friends who were equally serious. One of those friends landed an excellent children’s book agent, Erin Murphy, and gave me a referral. Erin took a chance on me, and quickly sold one of my first projects, a quirky YA piece with a strong southern flavor, to a small press, OnStage Publishing. The editor, Dianne Hamilton, was willing to let that piece be as weird as it wanted it be, and to this day, I love her for that. Erin then sold a three-book fantasy series co-written with the friend who referred me to her, to Llewellyn. After that, she made my first sale to a New York City house. Unfortunately, the book was orphaned by the editor who bought it and then left the company—and Erin had to sell it all over again! The book was Stormwitch, and the editor who bought it was Victoria Wells-Arms, at Bloomsbury. All these years and books later, Erin is still my agent, Victoria is still my editor, and Bloomsbury is still my publisher.
2. You newest book, Freaks Like Us, was released September 4. Choose five words to describe it.
Startling, Poignant, Fast-Paced, Unflinching, Challenging
3. You're a practicing psychologist, how did that impact the way you wrote about mental disorders in Freaks Like Us?
My career in psychology and my work with people who struggle with severe mental illness has given me great respect for their strength and capacity for healing and forgiveness. People looking in from the outside often see the oddity of mental illness, or the seeming humor, or the other-ness, but day to day, what I see is the pain. I wanted to capture that pain, and the strength and hope, too. I hope my years of experience bring an authenticity to the piece that otherwise might be lacking
4. In what ways do you think books like Freaks Like Us can help combat the stigma and stereotypes that go along with mental disorders?
Though mental illness is a player/character in the story, Freaks Like Us isn’t about mental illness, or even living with it. Ultimately, the story is about love, loss, belief, survival, determination—all the things that make human beings human. It’s about growing up, and never giving up. Jason has mental illness, but the illness doesn’t define him. More and more, I would like to see all teens, all people,no matter what their gender, religion, race, preferences, or challenges might be, in stories, getting the chance to star in stories, which are about them and their lives. I hope Freaks moves us all in that direction, of seeing Jason and his friends as people with lives, hopes, futures, successes and failures, first, before mental illness shades those impressions.
5. Do you have anything new in the works?
I’m currently working on a novel told in a series of scary/ghostly short stories, set in a spooky old
asylum (and no, the patients are definitely NOT the scary things!). I’ve had the privilege of working in several such settings, and work in a hospital like that now—the building is closing in on 200 years old, and daily proves itself to be a character in my daily life! Gotta love it. Except when I have to stay there overnight during bad snowstorms. And the power goes off. And I hear the noise outside my office door…
Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga at Tynga's Reviews! It's a way to highlight the books that everyone got throughout the week.
Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.
So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.
When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn’t expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, but now stained red and dripping blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.
And she, for whatever reason, spares his life. (From Goodreads)
Freaks Like Us by Susan Vaught
When Jason Milwaukee’s best friend, Sunshine, disappears from the face of the earth, the whole town, including Jason, starts searching for her. But the insistent voices in Jason’s head won’t let him get to the heart of the mystery—he’s schizophrenic, and the voices make it hard to know what is real and what is not. As the chase becomes more panicked, Jason’s meds start wearing off, and he is looking more and more guilty. But of what, exactly?
Both brilliantly witty and intensely honest, this poignant novel draws upon the author’s many years as an adolescent psychologist, but it’s Vaught’s powerful voice and expertly crafted mystery that will keep the pages turning. (From Goodreads)
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