Mental Health Awareness Month: Reading List

According to Mental Health America, “19.86% of adults are experiencing a mental illness,” which is “equivalent to nearly 50 million Americans,” and “15.08% of youth (age 12-17) report suffering from at least one major depressive episode (MDE) in the past year.” These figures refer to reported cases, and mental health professionals believe that the true prevalence of mental health disorders exceed what is reported. 

Striving for balanced mental health and gaining access to mental health resources are paramount, and the conscientious depiction of mental health issues in literature can play a role. Accurate mental health portrayal creates empathy with the readers for others and themselves and allows those living with mental health disorders to find community, solidarity, and in some instances, proper resources. Conversely, inaccurate representation can be harmful, even detrimental, to someone’s mental health and possibly their life.

In researching my debut novel, Rewrite the Stars (Black Rose Writing, March 2021), which features a character living with PTSD, I found just how overwhelming and misunderstood proper mental health care and support can be. Once the book launched, readers contacted me with gratitude for telling Theo’s story because it mirrored their own. And that’s when I realized many books published by small presses have historically been overlooked. In addition to my own, several books published by women during the pandemic approach the broad topic of mental health with grace, authenticity, and care, and more readers should be introduced to them. Read on for descriptions of these books from the publisher.

Jane of Battery Park by Jaye Viner (Red Hen Press)

“Jane is a Los Angeles nurse who grew up in a Christian cult that puts celebrities on trial for their sins. 

Daniel is a has-been actor whose career ended when the cult family members nearly killed him for flirting with her. 

Eight years after a romantic meet-cute in Battery Park, both search for someone to fill the gap they imagine the other could’ve filled if given the chance. Jane compulsively goes on dates with every self-professed expert in art, music, and food hoping they will teach her the nuances of the culture she couldn’t access in her youth. Daniel looks for a girlfriend who will accept the disabilities left from the cult attack. A loving woman will prove to Daniel’s blockbuster star brother, Steve, that he’s capable of a supporting role in Steve’s upcoming movie and relaunching Daniel’s career. 

When a chance encounter unexpectedly reunites them, Jane and Daniel not only see another chance at the love they lost, but an opportunity to create the lives they’ve always wanted. The only question is whether their families will let them.”

Inside Passage by Keema Waterfield (Green Writers Press)

“Keema Waterfield grew up chasing music with her twenty-year-old mother on the Alaskan folk festival circuit, two small siblings in tow. Summers they traveled by ferry and car, sharing the family tent with a guitar, cello, and fiddle. Adrift with a revolving cast of musicians, drunks, stepdads, and one man with a gun, Keema yearned for a place to call home. Preferably with heat and flushing toilets. Trying to understand the absence of her pot-dealing father, she is drawn deeper into her mother’s past instead. Inside Passage is a mother-daughter love story of resilience and hope against the odds.”

The Gold Persimmon by Lindsay Merbaum (Creature Publishing)

“Clytemnestra is a check-in girl at The Gold Persimmon, a temple-like New York City hotel with gilded furnishings and carefully guarded secrets. Cloistered in her own reality, Cly lives by a strict set of rules until a connection with a troubled hotel guest threatens the world she’s so carefully constructed.

In a parallel reality, an inexplicable fog envelops the city, trapping a young, nonbinary writer named Jaime in a sex hotel with six other people. As the survivors begin to turn on one another, Jaime must navigate a deadly game of cat and mouse.

Haunted by specters of grief and familial shame, Jaime and Cly find themselves trapped in dual narratives in this gripping experimental novel that explores sexuality, surveillance, and the very nature of storytelling.”

Threshing of Straw by Kim Catron (Columbus Press)

“A grandmother who only ever wanted to protect her two little girls. A mother who did the unthinkable

years before. A father lost in his memories of the Korean War, and a daughter caught in the middle of it all. Georgia. Thanksgiving week. 1962.

Macey May Johnson knows something isn’t right when her mama puts her alone on a bus to her grandma’s farm with strict instructions to wait to be picked up at the station. She’s only nine and has never been allowed to travel by herself before, but her daddy’s gone and the bills can’t be paid. And Macey May knows her family keeps secrets. She can feel it in her bones.

Her grandma keeps secrets from her mama. Her mama keeps secrets from her. Her daddy, well, he keeps them even from himself. And now Macey May has one of her own. A terrible secret. But which secrets are meant to be kept, and which ones are meant to be told?”

Paper Airplanes by Tabitha Forney (SheWrites Press)

“It’s the end of summer, 2001. Erin O’Connor has everything she’s ever dreamed of: good friends, a high-powered career at a boutique Manhattan firm, and a husband she adores. They have plans for their life together: careers, children, and maybe even a house in the country. But life has other plans. Daniel works on the 101st floor of the World Trade Center.

Erin is drinking margaritas on a beach in Mallorca, helping her best friend get over a breakup, when she hears a plane has crashed into Daniel’s building. On a television at the smoky hotel bar, she watches his building collapse. She makes her way home with the help of a stranger named Alec, and once there, she haunts Ground Zero, nearby hospitals, and trauma centers, plastering walls and fences with missing-person flyers. But there’s no trace of Daniel.

After accepting Daniel’s death, Erin struggles to get her life back on track but makes a series of bad decisions and begins to live her life in a self-destructive fog of booze and pills. It’s not until she hits rock bottom that she realizes it’s up to her to decide: Was her destiny sealed with Daniel’s? Or is there life after happily ever after?”

Rewrite the Stars by Christina Consolino (Black Rose Writing)

“Mom-of-three Sadie Rollins-Lancaster struggles with a crumbling marriage she had hoped to salvage. Though her husband, Theo, initiated the divorce, he’s now having a change of heart that’s difficult to reconcile as he fights against PTSD demons within. When a chance encounter with a stranger resurrects emotions in Sadie she never expected to feel again, her world is turned upside down. Will Sadie find the courage to shape her own future? Will Theo resolve his internal struggles and win Sadie back?

Rewrite the Stars is an honest, moving portrayal of life and love that reminds us how much of our happiness lies within our own grasp.”