A Tragic Kind of Wonderful

by Eric Lindstrom

Katharine Mangold (Narrator)

The heart-rending and inspiring novel from the critically acclaimed author of NOT IF I SEE YOU FIRST.

How can you have a future if you can’t accept your past?

Mel Hannigan doesn’t have it easy. Mourning the death of her firework of a brother, facing the loss of three friendships that used to mean everything to her and struggling to deal with a condition that even her closest friends don’t know about. To protect herself and everyone else, Mel tries to lock away her heart, to live quietly without pain – but also without hope.

Until the plight of an old friend, and meeting someone new, shows her that the risk is worth taking, that opening up to life – and who you really are – is what can make everything glorious… And that maybe Mel can discover a tragic kind of wonderful of her very own.

A beautiful, captivating story about living with mental illness, and loving – even with a broken heart.

• ISBN13: 9780008147495
• Publish Date: 29 December 2016
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Harper Fire
• Edition: Unabridged edition
• Format: Audiobook (WAV)
• Duration: 6 hours and 18 minutes
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.co.uk

Reviews

[Joséphine]

Actual rating: 3.5 stars

Initial thoughts: A Tragic Kind of Wonderful is a considerably quick read. It's no wonder then, that with so many personal issues to grapple with, there's not a lot that happened plot-wise. I did like the setting, and it was great to read about a main character who volunteered in a retirement home. The people there were all around lovely and obviously cared for Mel too.

The complexities of Mel's bipolar disorder were presented with great sensitivity. What this book did particularly well was to show how mental health doesn't always affect an individual but several people within a family, that there can be genetic connections.

Yet, for some reason, A Tragic Kind of Wonderful didn't strike me as a particularly memorable book. The prose was tight, but nothing to write home about, and the plot was straightforward. Perhaps this was meant to be a character-driven book but for that, I didn't feel a strong enough connection to Mel, or anyone else.

[Linda]

This review was originally posted on (un)Conventional Bookviews
A Tragic Kind of Wonderful had my whole body in knots. Mel made my heart break so badly, and at the same time I'm so happy to have met her - to get a glimpse into how life might be for someone who suffers from bipolar disorder.

Story:

After a horrible shock, Mel became so sick she couldn't go to school for several months. Afterwards, though, she never shared with her friends the actual reasons for not coming to school. She didn't want anyone to think she was weird. Or different. Or someone they might not want to spend their time with - so she stayed away from them instead. She got new friends, though and that works well for her. Until her old friends reach out to her once more.

A Tragic Kind of Wonderful doesn't make depression pretty. And it doesn't sugarcoat what Mel has been through, nor does it try to show an 'easy' fix for anything. It gets down and dirty, and has no qualms about showing both the lows and the highs Mel deals with in her daily life.

Characters:

Mel is the main character, and I fell in love with her form the beginning. While she does have a lot to deal with, she does her best to move forward. To not let her illness keep her down in the pits. And she has more people she can count on than she knows.
Declan and Holly are her new friends, and they're a couple. Her old friends show up again, too, Connor, Zumi and Annie - whom she lost while she was sick.
Mel's parents as well as her aunt Joan are very present in Mel's life as well, and it was refreshing to read about real parents in a young adult book.
Then, there are the people at the Silver Sands Suites where Mel works.

Writing style :

First person, present tense from Mel's perspective. A Tragic Kind of Wonderful switches between the past and the present.

Feels :

Lindström managed to bring me close to Mel, and while sometimes I was a bit confused, I guess she was as well. And I truly did feel the feels - both sadness and happiness, and everything in between.



We've had this conversation countless times, when Mom's not around to stop her. Except I know the drugs are a scapegoat. Like how Dad thinks I'm unambitious and unmotivated and blames it on being surrounded by underachievers. Aunt Joan thinks I'm antisocial because of the meds. They're both wrong. I'm naturally an antisocial underachiever.

Ms. Li laughs and blurts something in Chinese. David grins big - the first I've seen from him. Nope, not serious. His grandmother told me he's hardly ever serious but his poker face is amazing.He laughs and bows his head, and this instantly triggers my bright smile. That almost never happens on its own.

[ellieroth]

creo que es la primera vez que leo una protagonista tiene su periodo durante el libro

[readingwithwrin]

3.5 stars
"I wondered if my ability to keep myself from thinking about something isn't a superpower at all. I've always thought I had the strength to avoid thinking about painful things. What if I actually can't think about them because I lack the strength?"

Mel Hannigan is a fairly likable character, sure she has some friendship problems, but when you consider the things she's had to deal with they end up being understandable. Mel spends her free time at a care/group home for the elderly (not a nursing home) and she is really good at it. She has made friends with all of the people and knows what to do to make them happy. Yet the whole time she is struggling inside with something very few people know about.

I'm going to be completely honest and say I don't really know anything, but the basics about bipolar disorder and how effects each person differently. So for me this book was very eye opening with the different types we see and how they have each responded differently to things.

Mel is someone who has responded well to the meds she is one and goes to therapy she also has a really interesting way of monitoring her emotions. But she also hasn't told much of anyone that she is bipolar. Which I completely understand her not wanting them to know, but also at the same time I feel like they should know as well if she truly wants them to understand all of her.

"I'm not telling you to reveal your condition to anyone. That's for you to decide. But you seem to crave true intimacy and that's not possible with you keeping so many secrets. Not just about your past, but about who you are."
Overall I did really enjoy this book and it was a really eye opening read for me. Having said that though I didn't agree at all with how she handled certain things in such a unhealthy way (I get she was manic, but I feel like the adults in her life should have been paying more attention). Still though please read this if you want to understand just a little bit more. (please note that I am just going off of others having said that this is a fairly good representation. I personally don't know if it is or not.)

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[Jo]

Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.

After loving Not If I See You First, I couldn't wait to read Eric Lindstrom's next novel, A Tragic Kind of Wonderful. And oh, what a beautiful book it is! I absolutely adored it!

Like with his previous book, Lindstrom covered a lot of different elements with Mel's story. What I've noticed with both his books is that as a genre, they can only really be described as contemporary, because they're not just one thing; neither are romance novels, neither are friendship novels, neither are "issue" novels - they're all of these things. It would be more accurate to describe both as "life novels", because they simply incorporate so many elements of life. Whose life ever really has one main focus at time? I guess the reason books tend to focus on one main element, one conflict, is because a book could get complicated and confusing if a lot was going on. I don't know how he does it, but with Lindstrom's novels, there's nothing complicated about these books except the lives of the characters.

In A Tragic Kind of Wonderful, we meet Mel, who is still struggling with her grief over her older brother Nolan's death, who died seven years previously. She has bipolar, but it only made itself known a little over a year ago. Although having bipolar has changed Mel's life, it's not a complete unknown as her brother had it, and her aunt Joan - who she and her mum live with - has it. Mel's parents are divorced, and she doesn't have the best relationship with her dad. She no longer speaks to her old friends after a massive argument before she was diagnosed with bipolar, and her new friends don't know about her mental illness. She works at a retirement home, Silver Sands, and has friends amongst the residents, and it's there that she and David, the grandson of a new resident, catch each other's eye. So, you see, there's a lot going on in Mel's life - and I love how realistic it made the book feel!

I've never really known too much about bipolar disorder. I've read two books previously that featured characters with bipolar; All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven, but Finch was undiagnosed, and The Girl From Everywhere by Heidi Heilig, where Nix's father, Captain Slate, has also has undiagnosed bipolar, but isn't a narrator, so we never get his perspective. And I've seen characters on TV who have bipolar when they're on their meds, where you wouldn't have guessed they had a mental illness at all, and when they're off them, where their mania is shocking - pretty stereotypical representations on the small screen. So I'd not come across a character who has had a diagnosis of bipolar and is being treated for it, that seemed realistic.

Now, I don't have bipolar, nor do I know anyone who has bipolar disorder, so I can't vouch for whether or not this book features good representation of a person with bipolar, but it was pretty obvious that a lot of research and thought was put into Mel's character, her treatment, and her choices. Mel does take medication for her bipolar, but that doesn't mean her bipolar doesn't affect her - like TV would try to lead me to believe. I'm not going to try and explain how bipolar affects the various parts of her, because I simply wouldn't be able to well enough, but A Tragic Kind of Wonderful does a great job of showing us that's it's not simply about being manic or depressed, nor that it's simply about what mood your in. I loved how Mel would make charts to record how she was doing, what her mood was like, how her head and heart were doing, and her overall health, and how for each she related it to animals and would use metaphors to describe how she was doing. I'm sure none of this makes sense to you reading this, but it will when you read the book. There's a whole lot more to bipolar than being up or down, and this was shown well at the beginning of each chapter with Mel's animals and how they were, and how things can go when her bipolar affects her more than usual.

What I also really loved was the conversations between Mel and Joan (or HJ as she liked to be called - Hurricane Joan) about medication. HJ was strictly against medication; she was of the opinion that it dulled her personality, and she was never really herself when she was on it, and she didn't believe Mel should be on medication either. Mel saw things differently; HJ had bipolar, but it didn't affect her as badly as it affected Mel, and when Mel isn't on the medication, she doesn't feel like herself, like she isn't grounded or in full control. It was really interesting to see how one person with bipolar didn't understand how another person with bipolar felt, that it affects people differently. HJ believed that the real you is who you are when you're off the meds, and that meds caged and controlled you, that Mel wasn't allowing herself to be her true self, but for Mel, they gave her stability. It was really interesting to see the two sides of the argument. There was no message here of medication is good, or medication is bad, it was showing us both views. The only shame is that HJ didn't really listen to Mel, and wouldn't accept that this was the right thing for her. But what the reader does see is that taking medication is what's right for Mel, and not taking medication is what's right for HJ. There's no judgement or preaching coming from Lindstrom; he shows the various arguments, but also that some people can be stuck in their beliefs.

There's one thing I absolutely have to mention, because it made me so happy! This is the first book I have read written by a male author that talks about periods in any real way. I've read other books written by men with female protagonists where periods don't come up, and books with male protagonists where they may get a slight mention, if at all, and it's normally with an "ew" attitude. Mel's periods have an affect on her bipolar, so they couldn't be left out, really, because when she was on her period everything went a little haywire for her. But even so, Mel's periods themselves - aside from how they affected her bipolar - were treated like no big deal; something normal that happens, that affected her, but just a part of life that she had to get on with. Not something shameful, or disgusting, or anything negative. There was even a point when Mel thought she might have got blood on her nightie, and oh my god, I may have done a little happy dance, because I've not even read something like that happening in a book written by a female author! This is a book that normalises periods, and I abso-bloody-lutely love Lindstrom for it!

This review is already incredibly long, and I've only discussed the mental illness side of things! But I think it works that I don't say too much about any of the other elements, because it's likely to get spoilery. I loved how this book showed how complicated friendship could be, how you don't necessarily like everyone in your friendship group. In her old group, Mel's group of friends consisted of her, Zumi, Connor and Annie, but she never really liked Annie. Annie wasn't the nicest of people, and she kind of controlled the group, but Zumi was in love with her, which is obvious to all from very early on, and would do whatever she wanted, and Mel thought of Zumi as her best friend, so would also go along with things, but could see how Annie treated all of them. Things come to a head when Mel calls her out on it. And soon after the big argument, Mel falls ill and is out of school for several weeks. She makes friends with Holly and her boyfriend Declan when Holly is assigned to collect work for Mel and give it to her, and those two seem like really great people, though we don't see too much of them. I loved the look at friendship dynamics, though, and how friendships, and even the end of friendships, can be a lot more complicated than you think.

I loved how diverse this book was! Zumi is attracted to women (though she never says how she identifies), and is Japanese-American, Holly is African-American, and David is Chinese-American. Mel's doctor, Dr. Oswald, is African-American. The residents she's friends with at Silver Sands also include people of colour; Ms. Li, David's grandmother, is also Chinese-American, Mr. Terrance Knight is African-American, and Ms. Arguello, a resident who isn't really a friend as she has dementia and forgets Mel everyday, but for whom Mel has a fondness for, is Latina. I loved seeing Mel with the residents at Silver Sands, and the genuine friendships she had with them, despite the age gap. It was lovely to see her love her job, and that she has such strong bonds with the people there. Dr. Jordan, another resident, used to be a psychiatrist, and so Mel talks to him a lot about her bipolar - he says she shouldn't, she should speak to her own doctor, but he can't help helping her when she comes to him for help. It was he who came up with the idea for the charts and the various animals to help her record how she was doing.

I think I should probably wrap this up now, though I've barely scratched the surface! A Tragic Kind of Wonderful is an incredible book and a really interesting one. There's so much that is going on here, so much that affects various relationships, it's unsurprisingly a pretty emotional book. I just loved this book, more so than Not If I See You First, and Lindstrom is now firmly on my auto-buy list. Give A Tragic Kind of Wonderful a read ans see why he should be on yours, too.

[Bianca]

I think I know maybe five percent of you now and I still haven’t seen anything I don’t like. I didn’t like how you were upset, but finding out you’ve been carrying all this around and able to keep it together, it makes me like you even more.

— An insightful and engaging book about the struggles of a girl with bipolar disorder and the courage it takes to let people into her life and be loved for who she really is.