“‘What?’ I forget to keep my voice down. ‘Are you crazy?’
Eleanor grins. ‘Of course. Aren’t you? Aren’t we all?’”

I knew I had to read this after how much I enjoyed Sheinmel’s other book, A Danger to Herself and Others, and because of the way the synopsis promised to bring together my two favorite themes: boarding schools and mental health.

The characters’ issues are diverse- anorexia, kleptomania, selective mutism- and I was excited to see that the author devoted one chapter to each of the backstories. I was disappointed that some of the characters seem stereotyped, especially the characters with ADHD and OCD (ADHD goes deeper than being unable to concentrate and OCD is more than wanting to be organized). However, these stereotypes didn’t show up enough to take away from my experience. Plus, some of the characters seem very realistic in contrast (Eleanor is well done).

I was interested in the chapters where we got to see Moira (the protagonist) have therapy with Dr. Prince. I read a lot of books centered around mental health and most of them skip over when the character goes to therapy. Sheinmel most likely researched how a therapist would work through grief with a person. There are certain phrases/teachings I’ll remember from Dr. Prince (“move forward, not on”) (“this is what it is”).

I remember loving A Danger to Herself and Others because it showed the truth about how not everyone with mental health issues gets a happy ending. The Castle School showed that sometimes people with mental illnesses do recover. We need to see both things in literature.

Themes:
✅Boarding schools
✅Mental health
✅Therapy
✅Grief

Similar Books:
✅The Year After You by Nina de Pass
✅A Danger to Herself and Others by Alyssa Sheinmel
✅It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini

Sheinmel nailing on the head with mental health, once again. Stay tuned for a full review next week!