Hannah

Hannah
Author: Hannah Westberg
Series: Louder Than Words
Publisher: HCI Teens
How Received: TLC Book Tours

Hannah Westberg has gone through more trauma in her eighteen years than many people will experience in a lifetime. Stemming from her depression and recently diagnosed borderline personality disorder, Hannah has engaged in dangerous behavior and has paid a high price. By the time she was in eighth grade, Hannah was cutting, popping pills, skipping class, and drinking. The following summer, she tried to commit suicide for the first time. Since then, she has had stints in the psych ward, worked with numerous therapists, gone on anti-depressants, and gotten better, only to slip up and relapse, repeating the whole cycle again.

As told through powerfully written vignettes, Hannah is a personal account of the author's life with mental illness and the plethora of related problems that continue to arise through her day-to-day struggle to cope with her demons.

This was the book that, in my head, required the best writing. No, not because it was the last of the three that I read.

No, because her story was the one I've read before. Well, not her story precisely. But drug using and cutting are commonly seen things in some of the more gritty YA contemporaries. So, despite this being a true story, I needed Hannah to suck me in.

And for the most part, she did. Like both Chelsea and Alexis, Hannah knows how to write - she's good at it. Hell, she's even got quotability factor.

My choir teacher wouldn't let me take my final until I told him what happened, and he wouldn't take "attacked by Coca-Cola polar bears at the zoo because I was drinking Pepsi" for an answer.

But, with the exception of a few choice moments like that, I never really connected to her. Did I like her? Yes, I liked her well enough. And she writes well. It just felt like she was going through a list of things that had happened to her, with occasional mentions of how she felt. It was hard to get into her head, to feel what she felt, even when she was expressing it.

All in all, though, it wasn't a bad book. I was rooting for her all the way through!

Overall Rating & Final Comments: 7/10. Told well, but while it's easy to root for Hannah it's a little harder to connect.
Cover Comments: Poor Hannah. She definitely got the worst of the covers. She's much prettier than this girl. However, I LOVE the eyes.