Blog Tour: Freaks Like Us by Susan Vaught Review

Welcome to our stop on the Freaks Like Us Blog Tour for Susan Vaught. The tour is hosted by Bloomsbury. 

Susan Vaught Links: Web / Goodreads / Twitter / Facebook

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Freaks Like Us
Author: Susan Vaught
Reading Level: YA
Genre: Mystery
Released: September 4th 2012
Review Source: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Available: Amazon • Barnes & Noble • Book Depository

Summary: (from goodreads) When Jason Milwaukee's best friend Sunshine vanishes, Jason knows that something is terribly wrong, but solving her disappearance will require pushing through all the voices in his head and then getting the world to listen to him. His schizophrenia is stopping him from remembering the events leading up to her disappearance, and often he discounts his own memories, and his own impressions. But his deep knowledge that he would never hurt his friend, plus the faith of his parents and a few others in the town bring him to the point of solving the mystery. In the end, it's Sunshine's own love for Jason (Freak) that persuades him of his own strength and goodness. By turns brilliantly witty and searingly honest, Susan Vaught's newest novel is a laugh-out-loud, tear-jerking, coming-of-age story.

Freaks like us is the second book I have read from Susan Vaught. I am truly becoming a fan of her work. There are no vampires, werewolves or mythical creatures in her stories, only real life people in real life situations. She opens our eyes to things that go on every day and no one really knows or thinks about.

Freaks Like Us is about three teenagers who call themselves "Alphabets." They all have some sort of mental disability. They call themselves Alphabets because that’s how they are labeled. Derrick aka "Drip" has ADHD and ADD. Sunshine, is SM (Selectively Mute) and Jason, aka "Freak" is GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) and SCZI (Schizophrenic). Susan really exposes what it is like to be inside of a person with Schizophrenia. Jason, the main character, is in a constant battle with the voices in his head. One day, Sunshine doesn’t make it home after their school bus drops them off. Jason, Derrick and Sunshine have been best friends since they were little kids and they have only had each other for support. "Because who really listens to Alphabets, right?" Derrick, Jason and their parents area all in the police station being questions since they were the last people to see Sunshine before she disappeared. But Jason, starts to feel like he is being accused of hurting or even killing Sunshine. There is no way he could hurt his best friend. Right? In the back of Jason's mind he knows that Sunshine told him a secret and it's something he promised he would never tell. The only problem is, he doesn’t know if it really happened or if he just made it up in his head. Now, Jason is hearing the voices more and they are getting louder and soon starts to see things. Jason needs to take his medication that somewhat control these things, but he refuses to take them because he wants to be awake and help with the search for Sunshine. The ending, which I do not want to reveal, really made me cry. I will say that we do find out what really happened to Sunshine.

 
You can't help but to feel bad for these kids. They would give anything to be normal and not have to take medication every day in order for them to function. It’s a catch 22. If they don’t take their medication, they see and hear things. But if they are medicated, they sleep a lot and aren't as alert. Plus, who wants to be sedated every day for the rest of their lives? There isn't a happy medium and its really sad. Susan Vaught is a psychologist therefore, she has experience with these types of disorders. I am sure it must break her heart to see children every day with these disorders. I strongly recommend reading Freaks Like Us and any other book from Susan Vaught. Her books open us to something most people know very little about, but a lot of families have to deal with in real life.

Book Review: Going Underground by Susan Vaught

Going Underground
Author: Susan Vaught
Reading Level: YA
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Published: September 13th 2011
Review Source: Bloomsbury USA
Available: Amazon

Summary: (from goodreads) Del is a good kid who's been caught in horrible circumstances. At seventeen, he's trying to put his life together after an incident in his past that made him a social outcast-and a felon. As a result, he can't get into college; the only job he can find is digging graves; and when he finally meets a girl he might fall in love with, there's a sea of complications that threatens to bring the world crashing down around him again. But what has Del done? In flashbacks to Del's fourteenth year, we slowly learn the truth: his girlfriend texted him a revealing photo of herself, a teacher confiscated his phone, and soon the police were involved.

Basing her story on real-life cases of teens in trouble with the law for texting explicit photos, Susan Vaught has created a moving portrait of an immensely likable character caught in a highly controversial legal scenario.

This is a book that parents HAVE to read. If you have kids, especially teenagers, then you must read this. I have to say that this really made me think about our legal system. Things are not always black and white and when it comes to sex offenders we often think of sick perverted people (adults) that do horrible things to someone else. Well, this was not the case in this book.

Del had a normal life. He was 14 years old and into sports and top of this class. He played baseball and had a sweet girlfriend named Corey, who was 13 years old, but only a few weeks from turning 13. But after a sexting incident that landed him in juvenile detention and a sex offender record, his whole world came tumbling down. Now 17 and about to graduate high school, Del doesn’t know what to do. Colleges keep denying him because of this past. The only job he can get is at a local cemetery digging graves. Then one day while digging, he sees Livia and he is instantly infatuated by her. Livia is a sweet smart girl who also falls for Del, but the only problem is that she doesn’t know about his past.

Going Underground was a great book that opened my eyes to an issue that no one really talks about - sexting. This was a horrible thing that happened to Del and what makes it worse is that this is something that teenagers are doing all the time and don’t even know the legal ramifications for it. I recommend that ALL parents with teenagers and teenagers too read this book and do some research on this issue. Because this is something that is happening every day.