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Title: Lisa, Bright and Dark: A Novel (Novel) by John Neufeld ISBN: 0-14-130434-0 Publisher: Puffin Pub. Date: July, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.54 (63 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A classic edgy novel that still holds importance
Comment: I remember the first time I read this novel. I was maybe eleven and looking around my parents' library of books. I thought I was "getting away" with reading an adult book (my dad taught middle school, so there was a range, though I wasn't aware of it). It was only later that I realized this novel was written for young people. For that, and the time of its publication (1969), I'd give this book five solid stars. Neufeld deals frankly with a topic that is (still) too often swept under the rug-- the mental health of young adults. I give it four only because time has done the plot a disservice. Young adult women today aren't aching over Paul Newman, for example. That said, maybe we're aching for someone or something else, and surely there are plot points of value, still, in this well written book. Lisa is impossibly real. She's envied by one group, ignored by another (her family, all told) and agonizing over the means to an end. How can Lisa, a troubled yet talentd person with many promising attributes, get the help she needs? It's true that Lisa's actual "affliction" is never spelled out for the reader. I believe, however, that the decision to leave Lisa vague was a conscious one on the part of the author. Lisa could be any person in any town of any class and race. Her frieds are steadfast, creative, and unstoppable. They work with what they have in order to find help for their troubled friend. This is not just a fictional treatment of emotional turmoil. This is a timeless story (with some dated references) that many readers will appreciate. The faith the friends hold in Lisa is more about friendship than it is about knowing EXACTLY what's going on in the inner depths of a person's heart. Maybe this is a story that's overdue to be told in an age of wastebasket terminology, labeling, libeling, media-entrenched sound bytes. Lisa's "ending" is a happy one-- not because we reach the heart of her illness, but because we know that she, in her darkest hour, is never alone. That is the brightness. Well done!
Rating: 3
Summary: Bright and Dark
Comment: A Review by Nicole
This book is about a girl named Lisa who is 16. She starts to think that there is something completely wrong with herself. She tries to everyone that she is going crazy, but no one believes her. Some days she has good days and others are even worse she acts horrible, like no one is around. Her parents laugh and tell her she's fine; and her teachers don't believe it either. They don't want to admit that there is something wrong with Lisa. Her friends start to believe her. They try to help her but it's just not working out. Finally something happens and it just pushes her to far her friends know that she needs better help.
This book had it's up and downs but one thing I didn't really like that much was, it was not really how things are dealt with in these times, Teachers would have noticed it right away and they would have taken care of it as soon as possible. Her parents would probably noticed something wrong was going on. I feel bad how Lisa had to wait so long to get help. I liked how her friends cared so much about her and no matter what happened they stuck through thin and thick she should be so great full for good friends like that. They really over all help her out so much in getting her help.
I think that this is an okay book not to great or not to wonderful but, like I said before it had it's ups and downs. It always had something happening or going on in this book. I think people who like nonviolent action would really like this book. It's not really a book I think guys would like to read. But over all this was an ok book.
Rating: 4
Summary: Bright and dark and gripping
Comment: I first saw this novel in a bookstore a long time ago (when I was about nine years old), and although I didn't know anything about it, the title stuck in my mind for years afterward. Only just last month did I finally read it!
Lisa, Bright and Dark is a well-written and thoroughly gripping read. It chronicles the story of sixteen-year-old high schooler Lisa Schilling's descent into mental illness. Although Lisa's mother and father and teachers are inclined to ignore her, her trio of girlfriends recognize that something is wrong with her and decide to help her out. After learning everything they can about schizophrenia and other various mental disorders, the girls meet with Lisa for a series of amateur psychiatric sessions. Although of course they cannot give her all the help she needs, their determination to save her is touching and will likely make the reader wish he/she had those same friends.
Set in the sixties (and originally published in 1969), the tale is narrated by Betsy Goodman, the most reserved and sideline-sitting of the three girls. This was, in my opinion, an interesting and well made choice on author John Neufeld's part, for as a result we get to learn things about the character of Betsy that we would not have been able to know otherwise. I have seen some reviews of this book where the reviewer complains that it seems antiquated (i.e. the girls' use of the word "groovy," Betsy's lusting after Paul Newman, etc.). I personally didn't find this bothersome at all. Instead I thought it had the effect of making the book seem like a period piece, not unlike the movie "Mermaids" - and also like that movie, the majority of its qualities are indisputably timeless.
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Title: I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Joanne Greenberg ISBN: 0451160312 Publisher: New American Library Pub. Date: November, 1989 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Go Ask Alice by Anonymous ISBN: 0689817851 Publisher: Simon Pulse Pub. Date: 01 March, 1998 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Cut by Patricia McCormick ISBN: 0439324599 Publisher: Scholastic Pub. Date: February, 2002 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: So Much to Tell You by John Marsden ISBN: 0449703746 Publisher: Fawcett Books Pub. Date: 29 July, 1990 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Skin Game : A Memoir by Caroline Kettlewell ISBN: 0312263937 Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin Pub. Date: 07 June, 2000 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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