I had problems with this book, honestly. I know it was tackling a difficult subject. I know that I am not the one to be evaluating and judging the well-being of suicidal teens, and the protagonist of this book is literally a boy planning to commit suicide, and he wants to take some people with him. Leonard’s confessional is all cynicism, antipathy, and naive self-centeredness, and right out of the gate his corrosive rationalizations for wanting to kill his classmate and himself are brashly laid […]
I did like the turtle’s name. The rest was a flaming turd.
I should have known how bad this would be after the first couple of chapters, but I stupidly soldiered on. Matthew Quick wrote The Silver Linings Playbook, which was a decent read. This…was not. The tagline for the book is Didn’t you ever just simply want to…stop? I should have taken its own advice. But it’s not too late for you! Run away! But read my review first — I put pictures in it in order to distract you from the terrible-ness. Every Exquisite Thing starts with Nanette O’Hare […]
Mental Illness without the ballroom dancing
Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock tells the story of Leonard Peacock’s eighteenth birthday. It’s not a difficult read, but it took me a while to get through because it has some heavy themes that sometimes you just want to leave on the bedside table for an evening. Leonard is a very troubled young man and Matthew Quick has a talent for writing deeply trouble characters. “I’m trying to let him know what I’m about to do. I’m hoping he can save me, even though I realize […]