WALKING ON EGGSHELLS

How can you find a new normal when you can’t even be sure what’s real and what’s not?

Before the summer when his life fell apart, high schooler Kai Lum’s biggest worry was balancing school with on-the-job training to support his ambition of becoming a chef. Now he’s got a bipolar diagnosis, psychiatrist appointments to keep up with, a family that’s crowding him with worry, new meds that come with a host of troubling side effects, and the nagging fear that his friends are growing apart from him. And on top of it all, the voices that tell him everyone in his life is against him just won’t shut up. Desperate to “get back to normal,” Kai, who’s Chinese American and white, must decide whom he can trust and learn to accept help before everything spirals out of control again. This book, written in simple, straightforward language that’s accessible to reluctant readers, follows a clear plot trajectory, and even though the beats might feel predictable, they still come together to tell a gripping tale. Kai’s first-person point of view allows readers to viscerally feel what he’s experiencing as he struggles to make sense of his new reality while situations slip further out of his control. The challenges Kai’s family and friends face are also fully explored in the story.

A compassionate, heart-wrenching depiction of teenage mental illness.