If you review any of Bonnie's books this month, you will get extra entries for the giveaway. Make sure you are signed up! Loving the Reviews Challenge and Huge Giveaway!
BANANA KISS is a story about Robin, a young girl with schizophrenia, and Derek, a young man with
manic depression. More of a character-driven literary fiction than a love story, BANANA KISS is set in
an institution and seen through Robin's eyes. This is a world where the disembodied voices she hears
are more real than the people who stand in front of her. Robin believes she creates the world by looking
at it: a quantum theory world where matter pops in and out of existence as she observes it, a world where
she is God. And, because the reader is forced to look through Robin's eyes, this is our world, too.
Derek is a charmer, but he has problems of his own. A "rapid cycler," he can go from mania to depression
and back, sometimes several times in one day. The psychotherapist, whom Robin refers to as Whitecoat,
works to stabilize him, but "stabilizing Derek," in Robin's words, "is like trying to balance him on the head
of a pin." When Robin goes home for Thanksgiving, Derek falls into a deep depression. When she goes
home for her sister's marriage, he becomes manic and gatecrashes the wedding.
This, it turns out, is a good thing. We've known for some time that Max, the groom-to-be, is Robin's old
boyfriend. Robin, urged on by her dead father's voice in her head, plans to kill Max with a dagger hidden
in the sash of her dress, then to kill herself, and live together happily ever after in the afterlife, conveniently
getting even with her sister in the process. Luckily Derek intervenes before anyone gets hurt. Robin and
Derek run away, making their way back to Berkshire House by foot, bus and car.
Wow, this sounds like it's an intense, difficult to swallow (due to the subject matter), but interesting read. I love the fact that it deals with mental health illnesses that so many people are afraid to talk about. I'd definitely check this one out!
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