The Opposite of Music [Paperback]

Janet Ruth Young (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 20, 2008

when i am well

i will take you

At first Billy's father just seemed distant, as if he had something on his mind. Then he stopped listening to music, saying it hurt his ears. After a while he stopped eating and sleeping. And after that he just stopped. Stopped being Billy's father and his friend and became someone else. Someone who was depressed and withdrawn and wouldn't respond to treatments.

Determined to help their father, Billy and his family devise a series of unconventional therapies for him. But the strain of looking after Dad begins to wear on them all. Billy stops writing songs and starts avoiding his friends. His sister wants to suicide-proof the house. And his mother worries about losing her job because she takes so much time off. Taking care of Dad is starting to sap the strength they need to keep him alive.

The Opposite of Music is a powerful and realistic debut novel about the lengths a family will go to in order to save one of their own, and the strength it takes to learn how to ask for help.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up—Billy's father isn't sleeping well, isn't going to work, and walks through the house like a zombie. A diagnosis of depression is met with optimism by the 15-year-old and his mom and sister, who hope that medication will provide the cure and life will get back to normal. Billy is dismayed when his father has nightmares and breaks out in a rash from the pills. The boy's social life takes a backseat as the illness becomes all-consuming, and he becomes responsible for babysitting his father on nights when his mother works. When Billy goes to a concert with a friend, he learns the hard way that it isn't safe to leave his father alone for 30 minutes. As the story evolves, the family tries remedies such as light therapy and a brain-food diet, to no avail. When the man admits he would like to die, they become desperate enough to try electroshock therapy. The mounting concern is suspenseful, as Billy worries about losing his father and whether he will have depression, too. While the subject matter seems dark, Billy's character is empathetic and he describes some situations humorously, such as when he watches his sister squeeze lemons for therapeutic "wafting." A hopeful ending for Billy's father is shared by the teen's own return to normalcy. Attention to medical detail and advocacy for counseling will definitely put this title on bibliotherapy lists.—Vicki Reutter, Cazenovia High School, NY
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

How does a family cope when a father becomes incapacitated by depression and the medical system fails to help him? For Billy's family, the solution is to take matters into their own hands, researching treatments and trading shifts so that the others can continue to go to school or work. Despite the family's efforts, Dad slips deeper into illness, and the family slips deeper into isolation and despair: Billy no longer sees friends or writes songs; sister Linda is tearful and terrified. Young writes with lyricism about a family's attempt to come to grips with a mental illness and its effects. The story illustrates the strength and resiliency of Billy's family, but its graphically detailed portrait of depression may frighten and frustrate some readers. Young captures the reality of the disease, though, and for many teens, it is their reality. A well-written, starkly honest, important story. Frances Bradburn
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers (May 20, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416958231
• ISBN-13: 978-1416958239
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,817,366 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Janet Ruth Young, who lives in Gloucester, Massachusetts, graduated from Salem State College and from the creative writing program at Boston University. She was a co-editor of the literary magazine stet and a founder of Writers' Circle, the writing workshop at the Cambridge Women's Center. Her travel articles and book and theater reviews have appeared in The Boston Globe and other local publications. She left her job as an editor at a publishing company to pursue a career as a novelist.

The Opposite of Music, published in 2007 by Atheneum Books for Young Readers, a division of Simon & Schuster, garnered enthusiastic reviews from Booklist, School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, The Denver Post, The Boston Globe, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, and the website TeensReadToo. It won the PEN New England Discovery Award and was a Book Sense Pick, a Borders Original Voices selection, and an American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults nominee.

Janet's second novel, The Babysitter Murders, about a babysitter who has thoughts of harming the child she cares for (Atheneum, 2011), received a starred review in Publishers Weekly.

Janet has given talks and workshops for the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, the local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the Massachusetts Library Association, the Marblehead Festival of the Arts, the cable TV program The Writer's Block with John Ronan. She would love to hear from readers or to arrange a visit to your book group, school, bookstore, or library.

Find out more about Janet at her website, www.janetruthyoung.com and at her blog, www.janetruthyoung.blogspot.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Opposite of Music Heralds a Talented New Voice in Fiction, February 20, 2007

By 

M. Colford "chlotrudis" (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Opposite of Music (Paperback)

Janet Ruth Young's debut novel, The Opposite of Music is being marketed as a young adult novel because the protagonist is a teenager, but this is a book for all ages. The Morrison family lives on the North Shore of Massachusetts. Besides Mom and Dad, there is Billy and his younger sister Linda. One day their life turns upside down as their Dad succumbs to a severe depression. Alternatively embarrassed and terrified, Billy and his family do everything they can to help their father. As they do so, Billy becomes cut off from his friends, unsure of what to even say to most of them. So while his longtime friends wonder what his problem is, Billy finds that the only person outside his family that he can turn to is Gordy, relatively new in town, who recently lost his mother. Here is a book that explores a family dynamic as well as friendship in times of trouble.

Each of the characters in Young's novel is vividly drawn. Family members will seem as familiar as your own as the pop off the page and come to life. Even the supporting characters, like Dad's co-worker June, a well-meaning friend who tries unsuccessfully to help share the family's burden, and Uncle Marty, Dad's brother who's been down-on-his-luck of late, but offers his brother what help he can, are beautifully realized. There's a lot of valuable information here as well, for anyone who has a family member or friend who suffers from depression, and Billy travels a winding and surprisingly realistic arc that Young explores despite the difficult subject. This one comes highly recommended.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, April 9, 2007

By 

TeensReadToo "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Opposite of Music (Paperback)

Billy describes how his father just seemed less interested in life at first, but then things deteriorated to the point of severe depression including weight loss, lack of communication, insomnia, and thoughts of suicide. THE OPPOSITE OF MUSIC tells the story of a family dealing with depression.

Billy's mother finally decides that her husband needs to seek medical help. Dr. Fritz is nice, but his attempts to help are frustrating. The first medicine he prescribes makes Billy's dad break out in disgusting sores. The next medicine causes paranoia and frightening dreams.

After failed attempts to use medicine to treat the depression, Billy, his mother, and his sister become determined to treat the problem themselves. Each researches the therapy they think would be best, and then they work together to cure dad. Some of their treatment involves diet, exercise, light therapy, aromatherapy, etc. Everyone sacrifices their own life to devote time to dad.

When it is obvious that their theories are not working and thoughts of suicide surface, it is decided that a new psychiatrist must be consulted. The new doctor recommends electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Research tells Billy the therapy could be effective, but he also reads horrific tales of brain damage and torture. Will this help, or is his father's recovery a hopeless dream?

Janet Ruth Young offers an extremely realistic portrayal of depression and its effects on a family. It is definitely a book to recommend to teens living a life like Billy's. They will know that they are not alone.

Reviewed by: Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky"

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Memories of a teenage boy, March 19, 2007

By 

Claude Labbe (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Opposite of Music (Paperback)

Several times, I had to remember that the author hadn't been a teenage boy herself, because it was such fun to read this book.

The nuances of how boys think at that point in their life were so wonderfully captured. Many times, I found there was no was I could try to zip through this book. As I was reading, I'd think "oh, this is so sudden, so delicious", and I'd reread the line, or the paragraph. I found myself savoring the words at times.

This was a wonderful journey back to my teen years, and a wonderful journey to my 20's & 30's in Boston, as a few references are cleverly hidden, references that will make the locals smile.

Admittedly, at times the father's condition wasn't very comfortable to work with, but then, that was exactly the situation the family found themselves in. A wonderful piece of work, thank you Ms Young.