Because of Jenny by Brad Neaton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Literary Fiction
CW: depression, suicide, drug use and addiction, sexual assault
I was gifted this book by the author. This is an honest review.
“People would rather continue believing that addicts, the homeless, those struggling with mental illness—the outcasts ever-present on the outskirts of society—are just complicit denizens, thereby minimizing the complexities at the root of social issues and negating any self-imposed moral pressure to empathize.”
“There’s no hyperbole here: I was being asphyxiated by a depression that pervaded every aspect of my life, and I was lost in that depression the same way someone gets lost in the woods at night—with no fixed reference point and every direction leading nowhere.”
Eric is an 18 year old with severe depression and beyond the verge of suicide. After a failed first attempt, he knows he will try again but before he does he decides to pay for some female company. He responds to an online add and meets Jenny. Jenny is a heroine addict, desperate for money, her friend convinces her to put the add online, it’s easy money.
“Much of the time you can’t decide if you’re chasing the high or fleeing the hell; heroin is like a roller coaster with a broken track—sooner or later things are going to end abruptly. Sooner or later you’re going to die. The drug dictates your day to day existence, and most of your time is spent copping.”
Instead of sex, Eric and Jenny just hang out and get to know each other. During this time, Jenny admits that she is an addict and she is ready to become clean. She has friends in California, and a doctor had agreed to provide her with Suboxone, a drug that will help her fight her cravings so she can get finally get clean. Eric offers to drive her across the county to achieve this.
“I felt close to her in a way that’s possible only through binding commonalities, like how we had undoubtedly suffered through similar struggles and carried similarly flawed souls.”
On this journey they face many challenges. At the end, both their lives will be changed forever.
“There are many rooms in the house of depression; trying to extricate yourself from the associated behaviors is like trying to crawl through an endless catacomb of tunnels. Eventually, you become accustomed to a solitary existence, a lonely lifestyle meant to hide your brokenness from everyone, and a semi-agoraphobic mindset takes over. This depression-induced retreat, intensified by anxiety, has a compounding effect; you begin to feel more and more insignificant, and everything outside your immediate universe becomes more and more overwhelming.”
“Today’s society promotes cultural dichotomies, tribal thoughts and opinions, groupthink. It’s contagious. And it’s dangerous.”
Brutal honest book about societal views on suicide and addiction. Written in the POV of both Eric (real time) and Jenny (past).
This book is not an action packed, fast paced read but a deep thought provoking one instead. It took me longer to read than normal, not because it was bad or boring but because it constantly made me take a minute to absorb the passages and I felt a personal connection to them.
“But I come from a family that believes depression is nothing more than feeling sorry for yourself, it’s tiny-heart syndrome and it’s for people who aren’t tough, or who don’t know how to be an adult.”
I related to both characters so much and the struggles that they faced. They are real and well defined. The premise digs into situations that no one wants to talk about but effect every single person in this country in some way.
This is not a book that you speed through in a day but one that you take in one sentence at a time. I am thankful for the dictionary on my kindle because I used it throughout for a lot of words that I did not know. I have always been a great reader but lower on the vocabulary skills. This book is one of those that help you expand that as well.
“Love is the antidote to the poisons that afflict, be it depression, addiction, or some other seemingly insurmountable struggle”
“You’re not defined by your struggles, you’re defined by how you react and respond to those struggles, and anyone who tells you differently doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”
View all my reviews
