Name: Without Tess
ISBN: 9780374361747

Marcella Pixley

Fifteen-year-old Lizzie Cohen recalls what it was like growing up with her imaginative but disturbed older sister Tess, and how she is striving to reclaim her own life since Tess died.

Without Tess

Melissa Palmer

Book #26 Read in 2013
Without Tess by Marcella Pixley (YA)

This is a hard book to read. Lizzie is the younger sister of a mentally ill girl named Tess. Tess things she is magical, can shift into animals and is starving herself on purpose. Lizzie tries to take care of Tess, even at her own expense. Tess is eventually forced to begin therapy and medication but she would rather die than continue to live this way. Her decision fills Lizzie with guilt and confusion about how to live without Tess. 

This is a powerful look at mental illness at a young age. Besides the effect on the mentally ill person, this book describes the aftermath on the family members as well as friends. This was a book that was like a train wreck, but I had to continue it to see how it would end up.

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Without Tess

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