When Clara and Christian meet at a basketball game, they have instant chemistry. Things progress quickly, and soon they are spending almost all their time either with each other or talking to each other. It doesn’t take long, though, before Christian’s love turns into obsession, and what once was a fun high school relationship takes [...]

Tags: beach, dating, emotional problems, family life, grief, identity, mental illness, summer
Filed under: Book Review

When Joy’s family relocates from Claremont, CA to Haven, UT, she is forced to leave everything behind: her friends, her future plans, her sense of self. Joy discovers a new town in which religion becomes culture, and most guys aren’t interested in dating because they have to leave on missions after high school. Many of [...]

Tags: emotional problems, friendship, identity, religion, road trip, romance
Filed under: Book Review

Kendra, fifteen, hasn’t felt safe since she began to recall devastating memories of childhood sexual abuse, especially because she still can’t remember the most important detail– her abuser’s identity. Frightened, Kendra believes someone is always watching and following her, leaving menacing messages only she understands. If she lets her guard down even for a minute, [...]

Tags: art, emotional problems, homosexuality, psychological fiction, romance, self-injury, sexual abuse
Filed under: Book Review

In Cheryl Rainfield’s book Scars, Kendra uses cutting as a coping mechanism when memories of her childhood sexual abuse overwhelm her. Cutting is, of course, not a healthy coping mechanism, but it is certainly an effective one. As a psychology student, one of my main research interests was the differentiation between self-injurious thoughts and suicidal-ideation. [...]

Tags: child abuse, coming of age, emotional problems, mental illness, self-injury, suicidal behavior
Filed under: Miscellaneous

Some schools have honor codes. Others have handbooks. Themis Academy has the Mockingbirds. Themis Academy is a quiet boarding school with an exceptional student body that the administration trusts to always behave the honorable way–the Themis Way. So when Alex is date raped during her junior year, she has two options: stay silent and hope [...]

Tags: boarding schools, conduct of life, emotional problems, feminism, justice, music, rape
Filed under: Book Review