Made You Up

by Francesca Zappia

Reality, it turns out, is often not what you perceive it to be-sometimes, there really is someone out to get you. For fans of Silver Linings Playbook and Liar, this thought-provoking debut tells the story of Alex, a high school senior-and the ultimate unreliable narrator-unable to tell the difference between real life and delusion. Alex fights a daily battle to figure out what is real and what is not. Armed with a take-no-prisoners attitude, her camera, a Magic 8 Ball, and her only ally (her little sister), Alex wages a war against her schizophrenia, determined to stay sane long enough to get into college. She's pretty optimistic about her chances until she runs into Miles. Didn't she imagine him? Before she knows it, Alex is making friends, going to parties, falling in love, and experiencing all the usual rites of passage for teenagers. But Alex is used to being crazy. She's not prepared for normal. Can she trust herself? Can we trust her?

• ISBN10: 006229010X
• ISBN13: 9780062290106
• Publish Date: 18 June 2015 (first published 19 May 2015)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 15 October 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Greenwillow Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 448
• Language: English

Reviews

[Sam@WLABB]

Could you imagine wondering if what you were seeing or perceiving was real? That was a challenge Alex faced on a daily basis. Add to that, the desire for all the things average teens want - college, friends, an after school job, and you can see that Alex didn't have it easy. Made You Up was an interesting and thought provoking look at one young schizophrenics life, which I really enjoyed.

I have a relative, who is schizophrenic, and it can be a very difficult disorder to manage. I thought Zappia did a nice job conveying that challenge in this story. There was medication to keep her symptoms at bay, therapy to help her cope with those the medication could not curb, and the disequilibrium of constantly having to wonder if something was real or a delusion/hallucination. These were all things that Alex had to work around on a daily basis, and I appreciated that she dealt with all these things, while still trying to reach her goals of college.

I loved Alex, and I was so elated, when she found her tribe. Zappia assembled an interesting group to support her in her new school. This merry band of misfits showed their friendship many times during this story, and I was so glad Alex's punishment brought them into her orbit. I was even more happy, that it reunited her with Miles.

Miles was a really complicated character, who I couldn't help but love. He had many things in his life, that were working against him. He had a mission to "rescue" his mother and escape his father, and he was willing to go to great lengths to make this happen. He was wounded, but kept on going, regardless. His fortitude was overlooked by many, but not Alex. It was something they both had in common, even if they didn't recognize it in themselves.

But, what they really had in common with each other was a love for history. Miles loved to play a sort of twenty questions game, where he would challenge someone to make him guess a mystery person's identity via yes or no questions. I think it was love at first game for Alex, when she played with Miles. The surprise and admiration he elicited from her was precious, and I saw he valued her intelligence as well. This admiration turned to friendship, and once trust between them was established, it took a romantic turn, which I really was happy about.

Alex took the unreliable narrator role to a new level for me. There were many times I wasn't sure what was real and what was delusion, but there were a few reveals that left me reeling. One of them actually made me cry. I swear, it broke my heart, and it brought out the idea of what responsibilities the loved ones of a schizophrenic have to them.

I won't lie about the ending either. I would love a little follow up there, because I honestly was questioning what was reality and what was fantasy. So, kudos to Zappia, for planting so much doubt in my mind.

Overall: I was extremely happy I had the chance to meet Alex, and I thought that Zappia did a wonderful job helping me understand her and bringing me into her world via a story, that was difficult at times, but also funny, joyful, and smile inducing.

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[Bianca]

“But—but what if this whole place... what if everything is inside my head? What if you’re not real because nothing is real?”

“If nothing’s real, then what does it matter? You live here. Doesn’t that make it real enough?”

— An addictive and quirky book about a girl with schizophrenia. I particularly loved the unreliable narration: not knowing what's real and what's not. That really kept me glued to the pages.

[Angie]

Alex has Paranoid Schizophrenia, so she has trouble telling what's real and what's a hallucination. She has ways of coping and figuring out what's just in her head, but in Made You Up, things are getting really blurred. Alex starts at a new school after being kicked out of her old one, but her mom actually wants to send her to a hospital where she can get a better grasp on reality. On top of all that, Alex suddenly meets the boy that she thought she imagined when she was seven years old. Is he really there, or did her mind just conjure him up again?

I liked Made You Up. Alex was a great narrator. She's definitely unreliable, but there are some scenes where you can tell it's one of her delusions. But for the most part, I was never really 100% sure anything was real. Even when Alex used her trusty "take a photo" method. It's obvious that someone in her life isn't real, and I honestly wasn't expecting it to be who it was. I was shocked, and then I was mad. Someone should have told her! Alex is struggling enough without people playing along.

The one thing that bothered me about Made You Up, was that it felt long. It is over 400 pages, which normally isn't a problem for me. It's just that there's random plot points that felt like filler, and had no connection to the overall story. It was almost as if the author wanted to throw extra stuff at us to confuse us even more about what's really happening. Well, it didn't confuse me other than me wondering what the point of it all was. It was just a bit silly and added nothing to the story for me.

Made You Up was still a very good read though. I enjoyed being part of Alex's world. She's very smart, as is Miles, so I adored all of their interactions. They go from antagonistic and playing pranks on each other, to playing silly guessing games, and finally a sweet romance blossoms. I do kind of wish that the focus had been more on Alex dealing with her schizophrenia and how that affects her graduating from high school, moving on to college, etc, rather than the story feeling like a guessing game of who's real and who's not.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[Jo]

Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.

I heard about Made You Up by Francesca Zappia from Cait of Paper Fury, who raved about it on her blog and Instagram. As I trust Cait's judgement and love books on mental health, I quickly bought myself a copy when I saw it in store. I am so, so glad I did, because this book is amazing!

Alex is starting her senior year at a new school, after getting into trouble for graffitiing the gym at her last school due to her paranoid schizophrenia. She's desperate to keep her mental illness underwraps at East Shoal, not wanting people to look at her how they did at her last school, but it's a little difficult when she must constantly be on alert for communists and making sure no-one has bugged or poisoned her food. Because of the graffiti, Alex has to do community service at a new school, and has to join a group of seniors who prepare the gym for any big games. There she meets Miles, who seems strangely familiar, but who the whole school seems scared of. Miles isn't the nicest guy, but there's something about him, and Alex enjoys antagonising him as much as he likes antagonising her. But is Miles someone Alex should really fear? And why is popular Celia suddenly having secret conversations with her bullying mum in the gym, with her mum berating her for not being good enough? What are the plans they talk about? What are they plotting?

Made You Up is the first book I've read with paranoid schizophrenic narrator, and it was fascinating to learn about her illness. In popular culture, people with paranoid schizophrenia are portrayed as being "crazy" and dangerous; talking to themselves while laughing hysterically, and prone to violence. But this isn't who Alex is at all. She can't control her illness - the delusions or her paranoia - but if you get past that, she's just like any other teenage girl. She just happens to be a teenager who has some trouble working out what's reality and what's delusion. To combat this, she brings a camera with her everywhere, taking photos of things she's not sure of; if what she sees isn't in the photo, she knows it's a delusion, and to ignore it. It's her paranoia that causes her the most trouble. She has a huge fear of communists and nazis, and whereever she goes, she has to do parameter checks; make sure she's aware of her surroundings, be certain no-one has a weapon and will jump out and attack her, and she constantly checks her food for tracers or poisons - even food her mum makes her. She doesn't want to be doing this, but she can't let go of the fear that communists are going to hurt her. But otherwise, she's a girl who does her homework, is desperate to get into college, and just wants to make friends and live a normal life.

At times, it's really quite heartbreaking and shocking just how real Alex's delusions are. She has trouble working out what's real and what isn't, and there are a few unexpected twists along the way; things Alex brush off as delusions, and things it would never occur to her to doubt are real. These revelations are seriously hardhitting, and unbelievably sad. It's so hard to see Alex realise that she really can't trust herself at all; how is she supposed to know?

But there is Miles, the enigma that Alex can't seem to stay away from. Those eyes! Those eyes that look so similar to those of a boy she met as a seven year old, who she was so sure was a delusion. Is Miles Blue Eyes, or did she really make Blue Eyes up? And why is she so drawn to him, otherwise? The romance is slow and uncertain at first, but it's so sweet, and really, really wonderful. I love Miles. He has his own problems, and he does bad things for the right reasons, and he's dodgy but so good! He's not your typical "bad boy", he's not danegrous. He's just a guy doing what he can, in a world that confuses him. I adored Miles.

What's interesting about Made You Up is that it's not just a contemporary story about someone with paranoid schizophrenia with a romance, but it's also a mystery. Principle McCoy has a strange, unhealthy obsession and attachment with the gym's scoreboard. Why? Something weird is happening with Celia; Alex overhears conversations between Celia and her mother, and McCoy and Celia's mother. As far as her mother's concerned, Celia must be the most popular person to have ever lived, and she has McCoy trying to help her daughter. But there's really something fishy going on; Celia's mother is determined to see her plans come to fruition, and adament that Celia do as she's told. But what are her plans? What are the three of them plotting together? And what does it have to do with Miles? It was really interesting, because, is there really something strange happening with those three, or is Alex's mind creating delusions? With Alex's paranoid schizophrenia, you're never quite sure if what you're reading is true.

Made You Up is absolutely incredible, and a stunning debut from Zappia. I am so excited to read what she writes in future. And look at that cover! God, it's gorgeous!

A well written, interesting and unique storyline. There were so many parts of the book where I asked myself "is what just happened real?" The author does a great job drawing the reader in to the book which greatly increases the fun of reading it.

[girlinthepages]

Made You Up was one of my most highly anticipated reads of the year. I envied those who won ARCs of it at YALLWEST, and read many, many reviews raving about the story. However, I found that this novel was another victim of hype. While Alex's story and disease captivated me, the plot, setting and circumstances were often so absurd and caricaturized that I found it hard to follow along.

It's no spoiler to mention that Alex has schizophrenia; it's one of the major plot points of the book from beginning to end. I love an unreliable narrator, so I had prepared myself to scrutinize Alex's story and be ready to try and disentangle illusion from reality. I enjoyed the running parallelism of Alex's high school struggles to the Great Lobster Escape of her childhood. I loved Alex's commitment to school and college and reaching her goals despite her disease, and was intrigued by her continual balancing act of perceiving what's there and perceiving what's only a byproduct of her condition. I found it clever yet sad how she relied so much on taking pictures in order to later determine if something was real or if it was a hallucination. I loved her obsession with history and her eccentric yet supportive family.

Yet Alex herself as a character was not quite enough to make me enjoy the book. There were perhaps major hurdles I came across right away in suspending my disbelief, such as schizophrenia manifesting at such a young age (it generally appears in one's 20s) and such frequent visual hallucinations (auditory hallucinations are much more common). These "medical" inconsistencies paired with the bizarre actions of the characters in the book made it hard for me to enjoy. Miles is a skinny, slightly hipster-ish guy who Alex has a love-hate relationship with, who the school completely fears for some reason, he runs a club where the members non-ironically and adoringly refer to him as "Boss," the principal is a creepy character with an obsession with a inanimate object and a long-ago legacy, and everyone seems to put great stock in urban legends and hauntings. Alex's thoughts were often the things that made most sense (and considering she's schizophrenic, was sort of surprising) and the whole book read like a weird sort of fever dream. I suppose, though, that perhaps NONE of the events in the book ever happened, and that's why they were so weird...

I will admit that this book has some pretty good twists at the end, and of the two major ones, I was only able to guess one and was blindsided by the other (which, since I read a lot of YA, doesn't happen often but man, this one got me right in the feels). Considering how much time we spend with Alex and Miles throughout the novel, the ending felt rushed, ambiguous and more than a little incomplete. I was anticipating some level of ambiguity considering the nature of Alex's disease and her undeniable status as an unreliable narrator, but I can't help but feel rather perplexed about what, if anything, I can take away from the novel because there's no signs, even small indicators, as to what was real and what wasn't.

Overall: Made You Up deals with mental illness pretty candidly, as Alex struggles through her schizophrenia in an attempt to be a normal, college bound teen. While an enjoyable protagonist to read, the plot points get fuzzy and convoluted as the novel progresses (and not in a perfectly, plot-twisted way that seemed like a by-product of Alex's mental state-rather it just felt messy). There are some intriguing twists at the end, but I had hoped for a novel with more depth and less confusion.

Follow Me: Blog | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads | Bloglovin'This review was originally posted on Girl in the Pages

[shannonmiz]

::Hugs book and promises a mostly incoherent review about its fabulousness::

[celinenyx]

Although I rarely read contemporary young adult books, I tend to make exceptions for books concerning mental illness. There is something so fascinating about people whose minds work in a different way from a "normal" person's. Made You Up combines all of the elements I enjoy in this kind of fiction.

Alex has troubles discerning what is real. Are there trackers in her food? Are the Nazi's coming to get her? Is there really a phoenix flying over the town of Hannibal's Rest? And is the boy whom she liberated lobsters with when she was seven really standing in front of her?

Alex is the ultimate unreliable narrator. Because of her schizophrenia she cannot know what is real and what isn't. She tries to make pictures of things she's unsure about, and she checks them from time to time to see if they changed. Through the course of the book she sees some pretty weird things, and although many of them aren't real, some of them are.

What makes this book a lot more fun to me is that although Alex is unstable, she is not a black sheep among white ones. At her new school, there are plenty of misfits of one way or another, and in a way, she blends in. It's not Alex versus the world, but a more complex situation. She finds friends, and even falls in love with a guy, Miles.

Miles is hard to like at first, and Alex doesn't like him at all. Throughout the story, however, they slowly become closer and closer to each other. Instead of using the boring cop-out of "I hated his guts but damn is he hot", Ms Zappia gave the characters more time to develop something genuine. If you're someone who needs their love interests to be perfect nice guys, you probably won't like the romance in Made You Up. Miles is flawed, just like Alex is, and although their romance is unconventional in many ways, they're a perfect fit.

Made You Up is a long book, and I think it could have been shorter. Although the added length gives you more time to get into the story and get attached to the characters, it kind of dilutes the emotional punch. Contemporaries tend to be short for a reason. The added padding of Made You Up wasn't boring in the least, but it stood in the way of the potential it had to be truly emotional.

Although it's hard for me to judge how the author treats the theme of schizophrenia (since I'm neither a sufferer nor a psychologist), I love how she didn't make it a clear-cut black and white situation. Medication, the role of parents, the internal struggle of Alex, the possibility of having to go to a mental hospital... All of them are handled in a respectful and meaningful way. It keeps you guessing to the very last page what is real and what isn't.