Your Voice Is All I Hear by Leah Scheier

Published: September 1st 2015

I was the one he trusted. I was the one he loved, the only one who believed him, even when his own mother had locked him up and thrown away the key.

And now, I was going to pass down the white tiled hallway, knock on his doctor’s office door, slam his secret notebook on her desk and make her read it, make her understand what he was hiding, make her see what only I had seen.

April won’t let Jonah go without a fight.

He’s her boyfriend—her best friend. She’ll do anything to keep him safe. But as Jonah slips into a dark depression, trying to escape the traumatic past that haunts him, April is torn. To protect Jonah, she risks losing everything: family, friends, an opportunity to attend a prestigious music school. How much must she sacrifice? And will her voice be loud enough to drown out the dissenters—and the ones in his head?

A very shocking look into mental illness. I appreciated the message this novel was sending, but at times the protagonist was so unlikeable that her storyline and character arc completely went against the message of the story.

This story explores the dark side of the human brain, and how loved ones selfishly and selflessly react to mental illness. It’s odd that both traits, selfish and selfless run parall in the same people.

Impossible to critique because in many ways this is not just a ‘story’ this could easily be the life of a neighbor, a friend–family.