Customer Reviews

Crazy

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Crazy is just what the titles leads you to believe it will be, absolutely crazy! Jason's mother dies, and he is left to care for his mentally ill father all on this own. He's keeping it to himself because he refuses to let his father be locked up. To keep it a secret, Jason's learned not to have any friends, so to keep himself company, he's invited an amusing cast of characters in his own head. There is "Fat Bald Guy With Mustache" who is funny and series, "Aunt Bea" (from Andy Griffith) who is the sweet grandmotherly type of influence, "Sexy Lady" who spends most of the book reassuring Jason how hot he is, and Crazy Glue who is the teenager who tends to push Jason to do things he doesn't want to.


This book was a lot of fun, and although it had the heavy topic of a father with a mental disorder, and a teen who ends up in foster care, it still moved along at a quick pace and never really felt to heavy or emotionally draining. The words really flowed through this story and I would find myself sitting down to read for just a few minutes and having to make myself put it down after a full hour has past.

Jason is a great lead character, strong, independent, and yet still has to learn that sometimes you can't take care of everything all on your own. The "group" of real kids that Jason meets in therapy were a great cast and so much fun. They were a ragtag crew that I would have liked to hang out with when I was in school.

It was very easy to relate with one or all of the characters in this book. Even if you didn't/don't have to deal with the same issues they do, the point is, we all have something going on in our lives that we sometimes need help getting through. Overall, this was a fast and very enjoyable read and I will be looking for more books by Han Nolan in the future.

Seasoned YA writer Han Nolan is back with a book tackling a tough topic (mental illness) with sensitivity and humor. Humor, you ask? The conceit she has happily stumbled upon takes a page out of drama-writing school as she gives "voice" to five characters the young protagonist, 15-year-old Jason, hears in his head. As the real-time action and dialogue unfold, these voices inject their own opinions like a modern Greek chorus, and Nolan uses their names followed by the colon, just as in a play script.

Jason lost his mother to a stroke and now is contending with a father who suffers from a swiftly-deteriorating mental illness. In a house with little food, heat, or cleanliness, the situation becomes dire and the "voices" become shrill. Jason, who invented the voices "for company" in 5th grade, knows them as Fat Bald Guy (FBG), Sexy Lady, Aunt Bee, Crazy Glue, and Laugh Track. Each has its own personality, by turns sarcastic, critical, supportive, nurturing, mocking, irrelevant, and funny. They help him get by as crisis follows crisis, and at times amuse the reader as well.

The narrative arc of the book follows attempts by Jason's high school friends -- Shelby, Pete, Haze, and school psychologist Dr. Gomez -- to help both Jason and his dad. Also in the mix are foster families, courts, and hospitals. But the real attraction is not so much the plot as the characterization. And, of course, the essential question: just who is crazy here and who gets to define what it looks like? Overall, this is a creative and compelling outing for Nolan which will appeal to readers interested in psychology, social workers, and teens under duress.

When Jason was a 6-year-old, his father tried to bury him alive. Now that he is a teenager, he finds himself the sole caretaker of his mentally ill father -- giving him his pills, trying to get him to eat, and preventing him from wandering outside with his Spartan helmet and aluminum foil earmuffs. After Jason's mother died, there was no more money coming in, so Jason gets one meal a day with his free lunch at school, and saves a portion of his food to take home to feed his father. He knows that his father needs help, but there is no insurance to pay for it, and if both his parents are unable to be with him, Jason knows he would end up in a foster home. So he stays on with his dad, in a cold house, trying desperately to hold his tiny family together.

Part of what makes this book fascinating is that the main character is so conflicted. Jason wants/doesn't want friends. He loves his dad, but is sometimes scared of his dad. He wants his dad to have help, but he doesn't want to be a kid without a parent. He wants to be invisible, so that no one notices him and his problems, yet sometimes he just wants to speak up and be noticed. His conflicted thoughts have resulted in multiple voices talking to him in his head, and these voices help us see how desperate he is for someone to understand him without judging.

A fascinating book, a quick read, and yet not for the younger teens. It takes a level of maturity to follow Jason's path to resisting friends, then slowly allowing them into his life.

As I said, the plotlines of this and A Blue So Dark are really similar: a teen living alone with a mentally unstable parent while being their sole caretaker and trying to balance their own lives at the same time. Both are relative loners and both try to pass off their parents' illness as if it's something they can take care of. But where A Blue So Dark pulls you into the MC's feelings and emotions, makes you live them right along side the character, Crazy pushes you away because, well, there are already a lot of voices in the MC's head and there really isn't any room for you.

There is a disconnect between the reader and the characters because of the lack of intensity on the part of the MC. Instead of showing what's going on, we get the kid's life dictated to us by the talking heads in his head. Frankly I found it grating that the guy created his own sitcom and expected us to feel what he was feeling based entirely on the tellings of several different voices throughout the story. Really I am shown nothing and told everything about Jason and his father. All of the flashbacks are not relived with intense feeling from Jason but "witty" asides from the cast of characters in his head. Am I supposed to feel bad that his father tried to bury him in the backyard because the rest of the characters take it as a joke. And their voices are a hell of a lot louder than Jason's. And I get it's a coping mechanism but I think maybe it was a little too good because it pushed me away from the severity and realism of what was going on.

I felt more for the secondary characters that Jason has those school psych meetings with. Their problems aren't tempered by the voices in Jason's head because they know nothing about those kids. So there's finally peace. Those characters are allowed to come through and be themselves. I can actually see them. Jason? Not so much. He's hidden too far behind his headful of talking heads. It's kind of hard to keep reading a story where I just can't connect to the main character. At least for me, anyway.

Maybe if you can appreciate the type of quirky going on in this book you'd like it but it was put up against some pretty stiff competition. And not intentionally. Crazy just didn't elicit the same emotions for me. I didn't feel much for Jason and I had a hard time trying to look around of veil of voices talking at me the entire time. When I was finally able to, all I saw were the secondary characters. Not Jason. Personally, if you want a story about a teen having to handle a mentally ill parent, read A Blue So Dark. If you insist on reading this one, read it first, and then pick up A Blue So Dark for comparison. But don't read A Blue So Dark first because it will set the bar far too high and Crazy won't come anywhere near it.

Hi, my name is Jason. I don't talk much and I don't have any friends, except the friends in my head. Hey, you could be my friend? Just read along and listen if you want to. My mom died recently and left me with my Dad who is super sick and mentally ill. It is really hard living with him but he is all I got. I love him even though he thinks I am Jason of the Argonauts and there is no food in my house. I am really worried about my Dad.

I hear voices sometimes, maybe I'm crazy. I guess you will have to decide that. My life is sort of falling apart and I am trying to hold it together. I am having some bad dreams and I guess I just really need you to read this book so you can help me sort through my problems. The voices are vibrating in my head....

Crazy Glue: In my opinion Jason is Crazy like me. He is really boring, and a troublemaker. The best thing about this book is me, not Jason.

Sexy Lady: Jason is hot and this book is hot! You need to read Crazy because this book will blow your mind!

Aunt Bee: Jason is such a sweet nice boy. He needs to find a really nice girl to be his friend. He has potential you know, and this book Crazy is probably the best book you will read this year.

FBG with a Mustache: Jason's dad is really Crazy and he just needs a little help. Do you think you could be there for him and read to the very last page? Well, go get Crazy then.

Laugh Track: Laughter.

BookSnob (this is me): Crazy is the first book I have read by Han Nolan and she has just amazed me. I read this book in one day and felt my emotions being pulled and pushed like the ups and downs of mental illness. I enjoyed being a character in the book and loved the creativity of Crazy.

One word: Awesome!

I wanted to read this book so much, and when I received it through NetGalley I was very excited.

Jason is the protagonist. He spent his day at school, then comes back straight to his house, to take care of his mentally ill father. His mother is dead, and nobody has to know about his father, because they will take him, and Jason will be placed for adoption. So it doesn't matter to him that he has to take care of his father, sell almost every item in his house to get food and medicine, and that they live without heat.

Then, one day, he starts failing in school. It's very silly, but he needs the attention. So he has to talk a few days a week with Ms Gomez and other kids with problems....

Jason is amazing, one of my favorite male characters of all time. He's just like any 15 years old boy, but he has so much responsibilities. He loves his parents, and his mind is awesome. He doesn't have friends, except the ones that live in his head and talk only to him. But that doesn't mean he is crazy, right? Right?

Desperation, love, fear, anger. Jason has to deal with this everyday, but when he finally made some real friends, in a way, it becomes easier.

Wow, I loved this book. Couldn't stop reading it!. This is a very powerful book, and I cried a lot while reading it because it's exactly as real life is: very unfair. Very intense, but also funny, between a bunch of imaginary friends, real teenagers friends, and a crazy person, you can imagine!

Excellent writing. It grabbed me from the first line. It's not usual to start a book with the protagonist inviting you to his life, like a talk show. Very original.

Really, you must read this book. I recommend it to everyone! Teenagers and adults. Believe me, you will like it, and you will learn a few things.

This was a good piece of young adult realistic fiction. Jason, a 14 year old, is left to take care of his mentally ill father after his mother dies from a stroke. Jason really tries to keep things together and hide how horribly things are at home because he does not want to be separated from his father. He is sent to a school support group and becomes friends with Pete, Shelby and Haze. He does not count on them being so willing to help him with his home situation, even if it is in ways that he does not understand at first as being helping him. I enjoyed this book and think it would appeal to both girls and boys. I gave it a 4.5/5.

[...]

I liked the story line of this book, but actually felt it very hard to read with the different people making remarks throughout the story. This is a story about a young man who is faced with the challenge of having a father who is mentally ill. I read this story with the idea that his idea of having an audience to help tell his story was a coping method. Yet, I found it very hard to follow at times.

This is the first time anyone has ever said this, prepare yourself...

This would have been better if it were self-published.

Nolan stunned me emotionally and I couldn't think any more highly of her but as the book goes on it loses it's impact. It's too well edited, too clean, too mundane in structure; it would have been flawless if it wasn't so flawless.

If you are the type of person who doesn't like independent literature but want's something to make you uncomfortable this is it.

Memories from before his mother died and before his father went crazy are the only things keeping Jason going, but his grasp on reality may be slipping. A cast of characters inhabit his mind; their voices constantly whisper commentary on his every thought and action.

Jason's life is a complicated mess. He's trying to keep up his grades, write for the advice column of the school newspaper, and keep an eye on his father. It had always been his mother's responsibility to keep track of his father's erratic behavior, but she's gone. Now, Jason is in charge of damage control when his father dons his Greek war helmet as he rants and raves against the Furies who he believes killed his wife and are out to destroy him.

The stress of juggling both his own life and his father's has Jason talking to the voices in his own mind. Giving him advice, criticism, and sometimes comfort are characters named Crazy Glue, Fat Bald Guy with a Mustache, Aunt Bee, Sexy Lady, and Laugh Track. They are his only "friends" - until he joins a therapy group at school and finds he does have other people who are there to provide support and encouragement.

It is not easy for Jason to open up to strangers, but when his fellow group members pitch in to help when it is revealed that his father has stolen a multi-million dollar violin, Jason learns the true value of friendship. When things get so bad that his only recourse is to admit his father needs medical help, his new friends continue to cheer him on.

CRAZY is the story of a young teen's struggle to keep together what's left of his family. Author Han Nolan uses the unique voices in Jason's head to vividly portray the emotional torment he experiences as he watches his own father crumbling before him. Readers will come to know and love Jason and admire his courage and determination to hold it all together under unbearable circumstances.

Reviewed by: Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky"