I Don't Want to Be Crazy

✍ Scribed by Schutz, Samantha

• Book ID: 107682084
• Publisher: Push
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 60 KB
• Category: Fiction
• ISBN-13: 9780545231725

✦ Synopsis

This is a true story of growing up, breaking down, and coming to grips with a psychological disorder. When Samantha Schutz first left home for college, she was excited by the possibilities -- freedom from parents, freedom from a boyfriend who was reckless with her affections, freedom from the person she was supposed to be. At first, she revelled in the independence ... but as pressures increased , she began to suffer anxiety attacks that would leave her mentally shaken and physically incapacitated. Thus began a hard road of discovery and coping, powerfully rendered in this poetry memoir.

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 UpIn this "memoir in verse," Schutz comes to terms with an anxiety disorder that surfaced and plagued her throughout and after her college years. Readers accompany the author from the summer after high school, through college, on a semester abroad in Paris, and into her first job after graduation. Typical early-adulthood issues such as boyfriends, sex, drinking, grades, and family are woven throughout her struggle with physically and mentally debilitating panic attacks. The author had the courage and wisdom to seek professional help and embarked on a long and often bumpy road to treating her disorder. The decision to write in verse proves fitting; in the scenes in which a panic attack is approaching, for example, the short lines of text echo the breathless terror described within. Though the book begins to feel repetitive toward its conclusion, the repetition simultaneously reflects the cyclical nature of Schutz's disorder and one's college years. Aptly, the book ends without absolute closure, and while luckily not all teens will find themselves in identical situations, many young people transitioning to adulthood will find a part of themselves in this overwhelming, and seemingly never-ending, search for self-identity.Jill Heritage Maza, Greenwich High School, CT
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Review

Praise for *I Don't Want to Be Crazy*

"Versifying a novel takes craft and dedication. Versifying a memoir takes courage. Samantha Schutz must be commended for allowing readers such a personal glimpse of this frightening piece of her life experience." Ellen Hopkins, author of Crank and Tricks

"Once readers pick up this insightful debut, they will not be able to put it down." Voice of Youth Advocates

"Intense, intimate and heartbreaking. I had to remind myself to breathe." Deb Caletti, author of The Queen of Everything