Review: ARE WE ALL LEMMINGS & SNOWFLAKES? by Holly Bourne

Are We All Lemmings and Snowflakes? by Holly Bourne
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Welcome to Camp Reset, a summer camp with a difference. A place offering a shot at “normality” for Olive, a girl on the edge, and for the new friends she never expected to make – who each have their own reasons for being there. Luckily Olive has a plan to solve all their problems. But how do you fix the world when you can’t fix yourself?

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Oh. My. God. This book is incredible.

I’ve read all of Holly Bourne’s other YA novels and when I had the opportunity to pick up an early copy of this book, I jumped at the chance, cradling the paperback protectively against my chest. No way was I not reading it ASAP.

And it is incredible. I read it in just over 24 hours. Soooo good.

So it’s about Olive, a 16-year-old who suffers from mental illness (later assumed to be bipolar) and follows her as she’s sent to Camp Reset, an inpatient therapy-based programme. And Bourne definitely just GETS mental illness. She writes it how it is and in an accessible way. There’s no shying away from such a difficult, tough subject and she handles it soooo well. This book just bounces with Olive’s personality. We feel her depressive thoughts and her manias just as strongly as she does (warning: it does have some suicide ideation).

Bourne challenges/explores the notions of labelling and categorising illnesses, self-fulfilling prophecies, whether individuals are responsible for their mental illnesses and actions—and she does all of this in an amazing way. Seriously, this book is AMAZING (just like I knew it would be because all her books are).

In terms of the characters, they all felt so authentic and real. Bourne is an expert at characterisation, let me tell you.

Everyone should read this book.