Sarah Elizabeth Schantz

This was an amazing beautiful story with a heartbreaking plot twist. Though I wish the author would have said something about this could trigger the urge to pick or harm in some. Still glad I read it.

Fig is six when her mother has a schizophrenic episode. Fig develops many OCD tendencies in her desire to protect her mother from recurrences and herself from getting the disease.

This is a well written book about an important subject, but I feel like it's a slow starter and my students won't have the patience to get o the part where Fig is their age, and the potential romance starts.

I attended a workshop put on by the author of Fig, Sarah Schantz. I loved the workshop and felt a kinship with her. I enjoyed seeing how she weaved in the lessons of writing she taught in the class into her own book. Fig the main character is the focus of the story. I will always be a fan of Sarah's but I was not crazy about the story -- that has more to do with my preferences than whether the story is good or not. The book won many awards. The story is tough, sad, yet leaves us optimistic.