Name: Four Weeks, Five People
ISBN: 9781474069595

Jennifer Yu

Four Weeks, Five People

They're more than their problems Obsessive-compulsive teen Clarissa wants to get better, if only so her mother will stop asking her if she's okay. Andrew wants to overcome his eating disorder so he can get back to his band and their dreams of becoming famous. Film aficionado Ben would rather live in the movies than in reality. Gorgeous and overly confident Mason thinks everyone is an idiot. And Stella just doesn't want to be back for her second summer of wilderness therapy. As the five teens get to know one another and work to overcome the various disorders that have affected their lives, they find themselves forming bonds they never thought they would, discovering new truths about themselves and actually looking forward to the future.

Arianna

Lisa Sepulveda

I wanted to really love this book in a way that a lot of others in the community did I wanted to connect with it on a deeper level but maybe due to my age and it being over 10 year (YIKES) since I was the same age as these character I just found there interactions to be a bit lacking for me and the ending to be lack luster I just feel like I wanted more but that was the point of the novel that mental illness isn't something you can have an aha moment with sometimes it's about the smallest things like having a good day. And I felt like in the overall grand scheme of things that , that was a good message.

Mya Adams 

TW: suicide, anorexia, eating disorders, OCD, Anxiety, Depression, Narsasitic personality disorder, Borderline personality disorder as well as dissociative episodes

Parental guide: while I stress discussion and understanding. I feel this book is amazing and I tend to be on the liberal side of reading. Which means I like to allow the reading of many types of books that have mature content with the catch that talking about these things as they come up in the book is necessary. I believe in order to have books adequately talk about serious things you have to be willing to have those hard talks with your kids. This book deals heavily with mental illness. It has a lot of swearing, many incidents with underage drinking. But I believe wholeheartedly that you know your children and what their maturity is capable of understanding and appreciating. I do not have children but I am the older sister and due to my parents work schedules and their views towards reading, they often turn to me to decide what books are appropriate for my sister. I hope this may help you decide if your child is mature enough to read this book. I don't believe age should bar any child from reading a book that may in some way benefit them or others by them reading. 

I loved this book and the serious topics they discuss. I am a sucker for any contemporary that deals with mental illness or other serious qualms. I loved this book and all the characters with all their various and diverse problems. I loved the handle on balance the author had. She had moments of seriousness that were acknowledged and held then, we were given sweet moments of comic relief from the characters and their points of view helped us to relate to the characters even better.

On the note of points of view, I personally loved the number of views we saw in this story, but I didn't particularly like Ben's perspective. It was harder for me to follow, his dissociative episodes as well as never having quotes made it hard for me to see what was real and not. Like when he was actually holding a conversation with the group or when he was fantasizing. But I also couldn't tell if the author did that on purpose to get a better understanding of what people with this disorder have to deal with on a daily base, but it left me a little lost and hard to connect to Ben as much as I did with Clarisa, Andrew, and Stella. I understood taking this format because of the character's obsession with films, it is only fitting that his perspective is done in a screenplay format. I just didn't follow his perspective as well, because I generally don't like to read in that format as well as read many plays or screenplays to really understand it.

Other than that I have to issues with this book. I thought it was amazing and I wish she would announce that this will have a sequel to let us know what happened after the camp ended. If they ended up going back to camp the next summer or if they ever kept in touch after. That is my only request moving forward, are we need to know more about the future for these characters and their stories.

They're more than their problems... Obsessive-compulsive teen Clarissa wants to get better, if only so her mother will stop asking her if she's okay. Andrew wants to overcome his eating disorder so he can get back to his band and their dreams of becoming famous. Film aficionado Ben would rather live in the movies than in reality. Gorgeous and overly confident Mason thinks everyone is an idiot. And Stella just doesn't want to be back for her second summer of wilderness therapy. As the five teens get to know one another and work to overcome the various disorders that have affected their lives, they find themselves forming bonds they never thought they would, discovering new truths about themselves and actually looking forward to the future.

Four Weeks, Five People

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