For sixteen-year-old Mel Hannigan, bipolar disorder makes life unpredictable. Her latest struggle is balancing her growing feelings in a new relationship with her instinct to conceal her diagnosis by keeping everyone at arm's length. But when a former friend confronts Mel with the truth about the way their relationship ended, deeply buried secrets threaten to come out and upend her shaky equilibrium.
As the walls of Mel's compartmentalized world crumble, she fears the worst--that no one will accept her if they discover what she's been hiding. But would her friends really abandon her if they learned the truth? More importantly, can Mel bring herself to risk everything to find out?
The heart-rending and inspiring novel from the critically acclaimed author of NOT IF I SEE YOU FIRST.How can you have a future if you can't accept your past?Mel Hannigan doesn't have it easy. Mourning the death of her firework of a brother, facing the loss of three friendships that used to mean everything to her and struggling to deal with a condition that even her closest friends don't know about.
To protect herself and everyone else, Mel tries to lock away her heart, to live quietly without pain - but also without hope.Until the plight of an old friend, and meeting someone new, shows her that the risk is worth taking, that opening up to life - and who you really are - is what can make everything glorious... And that maybe Mel can discover a tragic kind of wonderful of her very own.A beautiful, captivating story about living with mental illness, and loving - even with a broken heart.
Everyone has secrets. Everyone is a secret.
Parker Grant is a junior in high school who loves to run, has great friends, and isn't afraid to speak her mind--especially when it comes to how stupid some people can be around a blind person like her. The only topic to avoid is how Parker feels about the boy who broke her heart in eighth grade... who has just transferred to her school. And as long as she can keep giving herself gold stars for every day she hasn't cried since her dad's death three months ago, she'll be just fine. Right?
Combining a fiercely engaging voice with true heart, debut author Eric Lindstrom's Not If I See You First sheds light on the metaphorical blind spots that are a part of life, whether you're visually impaired or not.
The debut YA novel of 2016 that everyone will be talking about.
?Parker Grant doesn't need perfect vision to see right through you. That's why she created the Rules: Don't treat her any differently just because she's blind, and never take advantage. There will be no second chances.
When Scott Kilpatrick, the boy who broke her heart, suddenly reappears at school, Parker knows there's only one way to react - shun him so hard it hurts. She has enough to deal with already, like trying out for the track team, handing out tough-love advice to her painfully naive classmates, and giving herself gold stars for every day she hasn't cried since her dad's death. But avoiding her past quickly proves impossible, and the more Parker learns about what really happened - both with Scott, and her dad - the more she starts to question if things are always as they seem.
Not If I See You First illuminates those blind spots that we all have in life, whether visually impaired or not.
