Reads to Lose Your Mind To

I think the thing I most wanted to convey in Juliet the Maniac, more than any of the other dozens of things I was trying to convey about what it means to suffer from mental illness as a young person in America, was how devastating it is to realize that yes, in fact, your suspicion that you don’t fit into society is correct. I didn’t fit in. I had to be removed from society, as a teenager, and placed in the otherworld that we shove people into when their behavior falls so far outside of normal that we can’t deal with them anymore. That feeling is humiliating and made me feel like an alien or a monster—a maniac. It leaves a scar on the psyche that never goes away, although the passage of time and therapy help. Books about this type of experience are one of my favorite genres—reading about other people’s representation of this otherworld, and seeing that while my experiences weren’t “normal,” they also aren’t uncommon. Here are some of my favorite books about life in these otherworlds.