The Law of Loving Others

November 3, 2014
Seventeen-year-old Emma returns home from boarding school for winter break to find that her mother is having a psychotic break—her parents never told her that her mother was diagnosed as schizophrenic years ago and has been taking medication for the condition since college. Emma’s mother’s subsequent institutionalization is like an earthquake in Emma’s life, threatening her romantic relationship with her boyfriend Daniel and her own sense of security. Emma worries whether she, too, is genetically disposed toward schizophrenia and starts down a path of self-harm. Heavy on Emma’s internal monologue, debut novelist Axelrod’s prose is careful, intelligent, and contemplative, and the past-tense narration gives the impression of an older Emma looking back at a painful, but critical episode in her teenage years from a safe distance in the future. As Emma cheats on her boyfriend, turns to scarring her body, and seeks connections in whatever ways she can, her actions never feel anything but realistic in this reflective and incisive exploration of the far-reaching effects of mental illness. Ages 14–up. Agent: Melissa Flashman, Trident Media Group.

October 15, 2014
Home for the holidays from her posh Pennsylvania boarding school, high school junior Emma is shocked to learn her mother's long-hidden schizophrenia has resurfaced. Emma feels blindsided by both her mother's behavior-she suffers from the delusion that their family is under constant, creepy surveillance-and the belated disclosure of her illness. (Diagnosed years earlier, it's been well-controlled with medication.) Emma seeks solace with her boyfriend, Daniel, but needy, anxious and subject to panic attacks, she wants more than he is prepared to give. Phil, whose brother is a fellow patient of Emma's mother, is more understanding-and attractive. Emma's fear of developing her mother's condition isn't easily assuaged, however. Daniel, Phil, her mother and other characters are briefly allowed to speak for themselves and then elbowed aside, sentenced to storytelling limbo so Emma can do it for them. A hands-on narrator, self-involved Emma's hard to like. Title notwithstanding, hers is a narcissistic world of bright, overprivileged teens who in their copious free time enjoy casual sex, drink heavily, smoke weed and snort cocaine with friends and at home, with tacit parental consent if not approval, in settings ranging from affluent Westchester suburbs to a spacious apartment on Central Park West. Family mental illness is rarely explored in novels for teens, but this one, trudging a well-worn path across too-familiar terrain, fails to fill the void. (Fiction. 15-18)

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October 1, 2014

Gr 10 Up-Emma's first semester of junior year at prep school has just ended and she arrives home for winter break to find her mother acting uncharacteristically agitated, paranoid, and distracted. Within a matter of days, she is found collapsed in a parking lot. It isn't until she's been admitted to the hospital's psychiatric ward that Emma's father informs her that her mother is suffering from a schizophrenic episode and this is not the first time it's happened. Emma not only fears that her mother may never recover, but that she herself may have inherited the same disease. Her friends try encouraging her to participate in the holiday festivities, but she can't stop thinking about her mom. Emma looks to her boyfriend for sympathy, but he's too caught up in the seasonal celebrations to provide the 24-hour support she craves. Her father is coping by keeping so busy that she rarely sees him. Feeling lost and adrift, she unexpectedly runs into a casual acquaintance whose twin brother is in the same institution as her mother, but their budding relationship only compounds Emma's problems. Axelrod has created a convincing portrait of a teen newly experiencing the step-by-step process of learning how to cope with a family member's mental illness. Emma's father and friends provide an additional range of realistic emotional responses to the situation, adding to the story's potential as a resource for teaching and healing. Pair with Geoff Herbach's "Felton Reinstein" trilogy (Sourcebooks) for similar treatment of the subject, but with a male protagonist.-Cary Frostick, formerly at Mary Riley Styles Public Library, Falls Church, VA

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2014
Grades 9-12 Emma is excited to come home from boarding school for winter break and spend time at her parents' house and with her boyfriend, Daniel. But something is terribly wrong with her mother, and as her behavior becomes more and more erratic and paranoid, Emma's father reveals a long-held secret: her mother has schizophrenia, and this isn't her first breakdown. For the next month, Emma tries to keep it all together, balancing her worry about her mother, who is now committed to an institution; her anxiety about her own mental health; and her growing dissatisfaction with her relationship with Daniel. But far from succeeding in this juggling act, she gradually becomes more unhinged, lashing out, avoiding her stoic father, casually and carelessly drinking and doing drugs, and recklessly flirting with a boy who seems to understand her better than anyone else. In this candid, affecting portrait of a girl in crisis, debut author Axelrod nonjudgmentally and realistically captures the swirling ups and downs of anxiety, and the frantic, impotent grasp for control in the face of unpredictable, catastrophic change.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2015
When high-school junior Emma learns that her mother's paranoid behavior is symptomatic of (previously stabilized) schizophrenia, Emma struggles to determine the significance of her mother's diagnosis, in terms of both her family's past and her own future. The characters and concerns feel slightly generic, but Emma's reflections effectively highlight the multiplicity of emotional challenges raised by a loved one's mental-health crisis.

(Copyright 2015 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)