Pieces of Me

February 1, 2023
When art student Dylan blacks out and loses three days of her memory, the life she's struggling to hold together begins to splinter and change. Hospitalized after what appears to be a suicide attempt and diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, she embarks on a difficult path to finding peace with her condition, her alternate personalities, and herself, exploring what it means to live a life where you're not the only person inside your own head. Insecure yet resilient, Dylan is easy to root for, if sometimes underdeveloped as a character beyond her diagnosis. Her traumas are largely presented with care, and her "alters" are given humanity in their own rights. She has a supportive and nonjudgmental network of loved ones and an accepting romantic interest, valuable and still too rare elements in stories about serious mental illness. But Dylan's journey through the psychiatric system is unrealistically smooth, coming across as textbook and well-meaningly educational. This is combined with elements that make other parts of the novel read like a thriller in their explorations of Dylan's psyche and its mysteries. The result is an occasionally uncomfortable clash in tone. However, for a condition often given deeply offensive representation, the book does pave new ground, if unevenly, and promotes a message of hope. Main characters read White. Informs and educates despite some uneven execution. (further research) (Fiction. 14-18)

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February 13, 2023
Frequent blackouts, time loss, and fuzzy memories are a few things that 18-year-old artist Dylan, a white college student from New Rochelle, N.Y., has coped with for years in this empathetic portrait of a mental health condition by McLaughlin (Daughter). When she wakes up in a stranger’s apartment and learns that she’s been missing for three days, Dylan panics. She is soon diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder and discovers that numerous alternate personalities, or alters, have been cultivating entire lives for themselves during her memory gaps—and that their existence has been protecting her from memories of a childhood trauma she can’t recall. Beginning in Dylan’s anxious first-person voice, McLaughlin deftly integrates and fleshes out the various alters—collectively a system—and their histories across alternating perspectives via depictions of Dylan’s art, journal entries, and surreal scenes set in the system’s shared inner world. Jarring early transitions between Dylan’s blackouts contribute to
effectively off-kilter pacing, gradually mellowing once she sets boundaries with her alters. McLaughlin treats Dylan’s system with compassion and renders scenes regarding sexual violence with care. An endearing budding romance and supportive characters round out this respectful and well-researched exploration of one teenager’s experience living with dissociative identity disorder. Ages 13–up. Agent: Deidre Knight, Knight Agency.

May 1, 2023

Gr 10 Up-Dylan knows what it feels like to black out from drinking. For the past year, while she's taken college courses in art school, she's made it a point to stop abusing alcohol in order to stay on top of her precarious mental state. So, when she wakes up in a strange boy's apartment one morning, she is baffled. Though Connor and his roommate Jess seem comfortable with Dylan, she has no recollection of how she got there. Doing her best to pretend, she finds her way back to her New Rochelle home, where her famous actress mother and twin brother live. As she struggles to make sense of the troubling events of the past few days, Dylan, who has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, feels a deeper sense of panic bubbling within her mind. When additional unexplainable events occur, one that is life-threatening, a new diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder takes over her world as she grapples with how to move forward. McLaughlin has created in-depth characters and a compelling plot to highlight this mental disorder. Dylan (who is white) and her best friend Izzy (who is Black) share typical young adult moments but also work together to uncover the truth behind Dylan's condition. With humor and insight, the author writes a compelling narrative that is unique and fascinating. There are a few sexual encounters, and triggers include suicide and memories of sexual abuse. VERDICT A powerful story that sheds light on a serious mental condition. Recommended for mature teens.-Karin Greenberg

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