Every so often I'll give my two cents as a psychologist about how I feel like various books do with their portrayals of mental health and neurodiverse identities!
I'll always do my best to keep these spoiler free! (As much as I can, but full disclosure, I have a rep amongst my friends and family for being awful about accidentally dropping spoilers.)
The Details
Book: Where the Forest Meets the Stars
Author: Glendy Vanderah
Genre: Magical realism? Idk, there's a lot of chatter in the reviews about how this book isn't really categorized. I think of it more as contemporary.
Mental illness/neurodiverse identity portrayed: Depression, Dissociative Identity Disorder (IDD)
Blurb from Goodreads:
After the loss of her mother and her own battle with breast cancer, Joanna Teale returns to her graduate research on nesting birds in rural Illinois, determined to prove that her recent hardships have not broken her. She throws herself into her work from dusk to dawn, until her solitary routine is disrupted by the appearance of a mysterious child who shows up at her cabin barefoot and covered in bruises.
The girl calls herself Ursa, and she claims to have been sent from the stars to witness five miracles. With concerns about the child’s home situation, Jo reluctantly agrees to let her stay—just until she learns more about Ursa’s past.
Jo enlists the help of her reclusive neighbor, Gabriel Nash, to solve the mystery of the charming child. But the more time they spend together, the more questions they have. How does a young girl not only read but understand Shakespeare? Why do good things keep happening in her presence? And why aren’t Jo and Gabe checking the missing children’s website anymore?
Though the three have formed an incredible bond, they know difficult choices must be made. As the summer nears an end and Ursa gets closer to her fifth miracle, her dangerous past closes in. When it finally catches up to them, all of their painful secrets will be forced into the open, and their fates will be left to the stars.
Why this book?
I'm reviewing this book because I want to start things off with bang and this books takes a stab (maybe unintentionally?) at one of the most controversial disorders out there- Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). DID, formerly called Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) is a trauma based disorder. Theoretically, in this disorder a person experiences a traumatic event and it's so damaging that their personality/consciousness fractures in order to protect itself. They develop several different personalities or "alters" only one of which really experiences the trauma. The other alters may be varied but often serve to protect the personality who experiences the trauma. Often the alters don't have memories of what the other alters have done.
This disorder, or the mere possibility of this disorder, has been SUPER sensationalized by the media (e.g., Split, Primal Fear). In defense of the media, it is a concept that really captures the imagination with possibilities. Among mental health professionals however, there's a lot of heated debate about whether this disorder even exists. Currently, as I blog this in 2022 this disorder has also gained a lot of traction with the youth on the Tik Tok. Many Tik Tok's describe teens' experience with this disorder leading to increased instances of self-diagnosis among teens.
Now, do I think this disorder exists? Read on to find out.
Overall review:
Overall- this book gets a 10/10. I liked this book more than any book I'd read in a long time. I have to acknowledge that as a child psychologist I'm particularly drawn to narratives about vulnerable children. I also related to the main character because she's a PhD student! Granted, she's a PhD student in something having to do with studying birds but I had a serious bird phase in the 5th grade so I thought that was rad too.
Mental health review:
Depression
The love interest in this book, Gabe, suffers from what's identified as Depression. As far as depictions of Depression go, it's not bad. Pros, his Depression is sincerely debilitating and not necessarily linked to what's going on in his life. Things can be going along just fine and suddenly he'll be out of commission for days at a time and struggling to get out of bed which is how real life Depression often operates. Cons, given the portrayed severity of his Depression, which again was done well, the resolution felt a little too easy and plot servicey. Given that he's not the Main CharacterTM his Depression sort of gets too easy a resolution so he can go off and be happy with our two lead characters which felt dissatisfying to me after so much work went in to the initial realistic portrayal.
Dissociative Identity Disorder
Okay, the broad strokes, one of our two lead characters, Ursa, is a little girl (around 11 if I remember correctly) who appears on our other lead's (Jo's) porch one day. Ursa claims she's a space alien from the stars sent to stay on earth until she sees five miracles. As the plot unfolds it becomes clear that Ursa really believes this. She makes some references to another Ursa who's body she's borrowing. As the book goes on it's revealed that this "other Ursa" experiences significant trauma and Ursa assumed the space alien story right after this.
I think this is the best, most believable portrayal of DID I've ever seen. Even though it may not totally fit with DSM-5-TR criteria, it's nuanced and believable. I can really understand how a child who has been through trauma would react this way. Ursa isn't have major theatrical shifts between all her alters, one of her personalities isn't running around committing dramatic crimes which pull us into a wild courtroom style climax. She's just a little girl who's brain needs so badly to be someone who didn't go through the trauma she experienced that it sealed her old self off completely. She has some vague memories of the "other Ursa" who's body she's borrowing but she's totally enmeshed in being the Ursa from the stars and (unlike Gabe's Depression) this isn't resolved by the end of the book!
In conclusion, do I believe in DID??
Honestly? I don't know. But I'll tell you what, if DID exists, I think it would look the way it does in this book.
Up Next
Going forward I have a couple other books in mind to review! Like:
The Rosie Project (Autism)
The Casual Vacancy (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder- OCD)
Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend (Autism)
Eye Contact (Autism)
Nothing to See Here (Attachment Disorder)
The Midnight Library (Depression/Suicidal Ideation)
Yes, yes, there's a lot of Autism but in my defense, that is one of my therapy specialties. And full disclosure, I'm really picky (I think) about how Autism is portrayed in fiction so those reviews could be fun to read. I do want to keep these reviews focused on books that aren't about mental health per se but rather are stories that happen to have characters with mental illness or have a neurodiverse identity. Let me know if you've got any suggestions for other books I should check out!
Until next time!
Love,
Ashley
Commentaires