Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, where book bloggers are invited to share their top ten lists centered on a certain theme.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, a topic that is so close to my heart! I’m so glad to see so many amazing books out in the YA world talking about mental health honestly and authentically. So many of these are books that I wish I’d been able to read earlier in my life. This list includes a mix of my favorites plus a few that are still on my TBR!
1. Anger is a Gift by Mark Oshiro: This YA contemporary deals with a lot of important topics, including police brutality, anxiety, and panic attacks. It’s heartbreaking but so beautifully written!
2. The Grief Keeper by Alexandra Villasante: I love that this speculative YA novel touches on immigration, trauma, and PTSD. It’s a moving story that has some much-needed commentary on the emotional labor white folks put on people of color.
3. Love and Other Alien Experiences by Kerry Winfrey: This YA contemporary is about a teen girl living with agoraphobia. I love Kerry’s books and she does such a great job of approaching this topic sensitively.
4. Harley in the Sky by Akemi Dawn Bowman: Akemi does an incredible job of discussing mental health authentically in all of her books! I love that Harley in the Sky touches on struggling with mental illnesses that don’t fit into boxes.
5. (Don’t) Call Me Crazy edited by Kelly Jensen: This anthology on mental health has been on my TBR for so long! I’ve heard amazing things and it includes so many authors I love.
6. We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson: I know, I know, I talk about this book literally ALL THE TIME. But I just love it so much and the way Shaun writes about depression feels so real.
7. The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan: Another one I’m constantly shouting about, this novel deals with the death of a parent by suicide. It’s such a heartbreaking book but one of the most honest portrayals of depression and mental health treatments that I’ve ever read.
8. Six Goodbyes We Never Said by Candace Ganger: This one’s on my TBR and I’ve heard such good things! It’s intersectionally diverse and has #OwnVoices OCD and GAD rep.
9. The Disturbed Girl’s Dictionary by NoNieqa Ramos: A YA novel about a Latina girl struggling with mental illness–this is another one that’s been on my TBR for a while!
10. The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf: Okay, I did just feature this in a recent Top Ten Tuesday post, but I had to include it here! I just love that this YA novel puts mental illness (specifically OCD) in a historical context and has #OwnVoices Malaysian & Muslim rep.
What’s your favorite book that talks about mental health?
Books. Libraries. Also, cats. 
Don’t Call Me Crazy is an incredible book!
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As a high school librarian I often found myself reading titles about mental health topics or issues. Here are some of my favorites: Please Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock; Hold Still; Challenger Deep; The Unlikely Hero of Room 13-B; and When We Collided. I like We Are the Ants and other books by Hutchinson, too. My TTT list today>
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I loved Hold Still! A few of those other titles are on my TBR. Thank you for sharing!
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Love this , I did my favourite tropes over at The Phantom Paragrapher and #10 was Mental Health/Illness/Edgy Topics such as Drugs/Alcohol and Abuse.
I loved #5 on your list 🙂
A couple of my favourites is Finding Alice by Melody Carlson , The Divided Mind by M. Billiter . Also Ellen Hopkins and Melody Carlson are both great authors at capturing this issue in fiction,
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Great list – I read Normal People by Sally Rooney not long ago, and I thought that dealt with a main character’s depression really well. The TV series did it properly too.
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I’ve heard amazing things about that book!
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I’ve heard good things about We Are the Ants.
Here is our Top Ten Tuesday.
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It’s definitely a favorite of mine!
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I think it’s awesome that you highlighted mental health awareness week in your post.
My TTT .
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Thank you! Happy reading!
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Great list! I’ve heard so many good things about The Astonishing Colour of After, I really need to cross it off my TBR, and I love the sound of The Weight of Our Sky, too.
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Yesss both are amazing! Hope you get a chance to read them soon!
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Oh I’ve been meaning to read that anthology, but I’m not sure it was ever published in the UK!
My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2020/05/19/top-ten-tuesday-264/
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I hope we both get to read it soon!
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Hopefully!
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Wonderful list! I loved The Astonishing Colour of After and I have several of these on my TBR waiting to be read, but I’ve heard great things about all of them 🙂
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Yessss the Astonishing Color of After is truly amazing! Hope you get a chance to read some of the other ones soon!
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I really want to check out (Don’t) Call Me Crazy. We Are the Ants is one of my favorites – so so good!! I love books that talk about mental health, because it’s so important.
-Lauren
http://www.shootingstarsmag.net
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Shaun David Hutchinson is amazing! Have you read any of his other books?
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I always forget that We Are the Ants is a mental health read. I really liked that book.
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It’s definitely one of my all time favorites! Have you read anything else by Shaun David Hutchinson?
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I haven’t yet, unfortunately.
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I really want to read Harley in the Sky! I loved Starfish by Akemi Dawn Bowman so she is definitely an author that I’m putting on my auto-buy list 😀
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Harley is amazing! Have you read Akemi’s sophomore novel Summer Bird Blue?
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I loved Astonishing Color so much. And I think Anger Is a Gift has some gerat mental health rep, but I really struggled with the lower quality (IMO) of the writing itself.
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Ah sorry to hear that the writing didn’t work for you in that one! I listened to it as an audiobook read by the author and he did a great job bringing the story to life. I enjoyed it in that format!
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Probably The Storm Crow. I think it depicts depression well. When Elephants Fly deals with schizophrenia, as does I Know This Much is True.
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Those are all on my TBR!
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