The Words We Keep by Erin Stewart

Hello visitors of the blog! 

It's Jillian and I'm back!!

I'm back with a review of The Words We Keep by Erin Stewart - a realistic young adult fiction book published this year.  The book explores the topic of mental health awareness, self harm and suicide.  While I don't have triggers toward those topics, some readers might.  I would definitely take that in consideration when reading this book or even this post about the book. 

The Words We Keep is about Lily Larkin, a high school junior who is dealing with a lot of things - all at once.  The reader later learns that Lily is suffering from anxiety but Stewart lays out a path that is easy for the reader to follow when it comes to Lily and what she's battling.  The story starts off with Lily running - she's running to the ocean and she is quickly beckoned home by her older sister, Alice.  Lily finds Alice on the bathroom floor after committing an episode of self harm - I'm going to say that it's self harm because I don't recall Alice's character explicitly saying that she was attempting suicide.  

The story quickly moves into Lily navigating her everyday life; a project in school with a partner who knew Alice in treatment and how Lily is managing her feelings with the entire situation.  The reader picks up early on that Lily is struggling with what is going on (at home and at school) and that she doesn't have a strong support system.  

First and foremost, I believe that this book should come with a trigger warning.  It's transparent in that as you're the reader, you're well aware that the subject of mental health is tackled in this book but it doesn't mention the variety of other things associated with mental health and anxiety that you will read about.  There is no disclosure of suicide attempts; just the sheer amount characteristics associated with anxiety were listed and to be quite frank, it was VERY overwhelming!

An example, Lily would go from the ruminating thoughts to picking her skin to a trying to inflict a severe act of self harm.  Then you had Alice's story which was happening while Lily was having her own stuff going on. 

My overall thought on this book is... that it was just okay.  Even though I found the story to be raw, powerful and beautiful.  The emotions that are worn through this story are ones that you certainly feel.

It kept my attention and I will agree that, that is important but it wasn't my favorite book that I've read recently.   Even though I do me a book that advocates for mental health and mental health awareness.

The story line doesn't pick up until you're more than halfway through reading and then it quickly escalates and then things come to ahead...And you're left wondering why just happened and how you got there...

One thing that I did like about this story was that Stewart showed what happens when a family becomes hyper-focused on addressing one child and ignores everything else.  It also discusses how there is a pressure for the remaining children to stay "perfect" to keep the peace almost. 

- Jillian