Mental Health Reads

Harley in the Sky

By: Akemi Dawn Bowman
Narrated by: Ali Ahn
Length: 9 hours 4 minutes

The Greatest Showman meets This Is Us by way of Sarah Dessen in this heart-wrenching, hopeful contemporary novel about a multiracial teen who risks it all to follow her dreams by joining the circus, from the critically acclaimed author of Starfish.

Harley Milano has dreamed of becoming a trapeze artist for as long as she can remember. With... Read more

Black Girl Unlimited

The Remarkable Story of a Teenage Wizard

By: Echo Brown
Narrated by: Echo Brown
Length: 8 hours 29 minutes

This program is read by the author

"Just brilliant."—Kirkus Reviews

Heavily autobiographical and infused with magical realism, Black Girl Unlimited fearlessly explores the intersections of poverty, sexual violence, depression, racism, and sexism—all through the arc of a transcendent coming-of-age story for fans of Renee Watson's Piecing Me... Read more

A Breath Too Late

By: Rocky Callen
Narrated by: Imani Jade Powers
Length: 5 hours 8 minutes

For fans of Girl in Pieces, All the Bright Places, and Girl, Interrupted comes a haunting and breathtaking YA contemporary debut novel that packs a powerful message: hope can be found in the darkness.

This program includes an author's note read by the author

“Achingly poignant . . . a love letter and a life raft to the brokenhearted.” –New York... Read more

Eat a Peach

A Memoir

By: David Chang & Gabe Ulla
Narrated by: David Chang
Length: 9 hours 6 minutes

“This book is so many things, and I love all of it because David Chang is unflinchingly real. He talks through being a child of immigrants, depressions, imposter syndrome, making mistakes, reaching out for help and walking away from that help. As an entrepreneur, I saw myself and I saw how I can become a better version of myself. This book is now... Read more

Notes on a Silencing

A Memoir

By: Lacy Crawford
Narrated by: Lacy Crawford
Length: 11 hours 5 minutes

A "powerful and scary and important and true" memoir of a young woman's struggle to regain her sense of self after trauma, and the efforts by a powerful New England boarding school to silence her—at any cost (Sally Mann, author of Hold Still).

Shortlisted for the 2022 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing When Notes on a Silencing hit... Read more

Freshwater

By: Akwaeke Emezi
Narrated by: Akwaeke Emezi
Length: 6 hours 42 minutes

An extraordinary debut novel, Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self. It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result of being born "with one foot on the other side." Unsettling, heartwrenching, dark, and powerful, Freshwater is a sharp evocation of a rare way of... Read more

How It Feels to Float

By: Helena Fox
Narrated by: Candice Moll
Length: 9 hours 33 minutes

A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year
A Chicago Public Library Best of the Best of the Year

"Profoundly moving . . . Will take your breath away." —Kathleen Glasgow, author of Girl in Pieces

A stunningly gorgeous and deeply hopeful portrayal of living with mental illness and grief, from an exceptional new voice.

Biz knows how to float. She has her... Read more

How to Make Friends with the Dark

By: Kathleen Glasgow
Narrated by: Jorjeana Marie & Kathleen Glasgow
Length: 12 hours 41 minutes

From the New York Times bestselling author of Girl in Pieces comes a novel about love and loss and learning how to continue when it feels like you're surrounded by darkness.

"A rare and powerful novel." --Karen M. McManus, New York Times bestselling author of One of Us Is Lying and Two Can Keep a Secret

Tiger's life changed with a simple phone... Read more

Turtles All the Way Down

By: John Green
Narrated by: Kate Rudd
Length: 7 hours 11 minutes

FEATURED ON 60 MINUTES and FRESH AIR

“So surprising and moving and true that I became completely unstrung.” – The New York Times

Named a best book of the year by: The New York Times, NPR, TIME, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, Southern Living, Publishers Weekly, BookPage, A.V. Club, Bustle, BuzzFeed, Vulture, and many... Read more

Transcendent Kingdom: A Read with Jenna Pick

A novel

By: Yaa Gyasi
Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
Length: 8 hours 40 minutes

“Gifty immigrated from Ghana, grew up in Alabama, and is working on a PhD in neuroscience at Stanford, where she experiments with mice. She has always felt she wasn’t cool enough or white enough, and tries to prove her value through her brilliance. She tells her raw and powerful story of racism, addiction, mental illness, and especially faith and... Read more

All the Things We Never Knew

Chasing the Chaos of Mental Illness

By: Sheila Hamilton
Narrated by: Sheila Hamilton
Length: 8 hours 44 minutes

Even as a reporter, Sheila Hamilton missed the signs as her husband David’s mental illness unfolded before her. By the time she had pieced together the puzzle, it was too late. Her once brilliant, intense, and hilarious partner was dead within six weeks of a formal diagnosis of bipolar disorder, leaving his nine-year-old daughter and wife... Read more

You Should See Me in a Crown

By: Leah Johnson
Length: 7 hours 18 minutes

“Here is the novel that will restore your faith in humanity in spades. In Campbell, Indiana, being crowned prom royalty is the ultimate recognition. And this year Liz Lighty needs to win that crown because it happens to be attached to an academic scholarship she desperately needs. The cards are stacked against her: she struggles with anxiety,... Read more

Darius the Great Is Not Okay

By: Adib Khorram
Narrated by: Michael Levi Harris
Length: 7 hours 33 minutes

“Darius is struggling. He doesn't fit in at school. He has trouble making friends. He's bullied. And to top that off, he's plagued by horribly negative thoughts including the very painful feeling that his father doesn't like him and wishes to replace him with his younger sister. Darius, indeed, is not okay. Everything changes when Darius meets... Read more

We Are Okay

By: Nina LaCour
Narrated by: Jorjeana Marie
Length: 5 hours 36 minutes

Winner of the 2018 Michael L. Printz Award — An achingly beautiful novel about grief and the enduring power of friendship.

“Short, poetic and gorgeously written.” —The New York Times Book Review

“A beautiful, devastating piece of art." —Bookpage

You go through life thinking there’s so much you need. . . . Until you leave with only your phone, your... Read more

The Lucky Ones

By: Liz Lawson
Narrated by: Emma Galvin, Robbie Daymond & Liz Lawson
Length: 8 hours 59 minutes

For fans of Thirteen Reasons Why, This Is How It Ends, and All the Bright Places, comes a new novel about life after. How do you put yourself back together when it seems like you've lost it all?

May is a survivor. But she doesn't feel like one. She feels angry. And lost. And alone. Eleven months after the school shooting that killed her twin... Read more

Everything Here Is Beautiful

By: Mira T. Lee
Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell, Emily Woo Zeller, Ozzie Rodriguez, Kim Mai Guest & Paul Boehmer
Length: 13 hours 17 minutes

“Everything Here Is Beautiful is a remarkable debut about two sisters and the strength of their bond. At the heart of this story is Lucia - a sister, mother, and woman who struggles with mental illness. Told from alternating points of view, Mira T. Lee gives an honest and emotional look at living with mental illness and its impact on not only... Read more

Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune

By: Roselle Lim
Narrated by: Catherine Ho
Length: 10 hours 30 minutes

Lush and visual, chock-full of delicious recipes, Roselle Lim’s magical debut novel is about food, heritage, and finding family in the most unexpected places.  

At the news of her mother’s death, Natalie Tan returns home. The two women hadn’t spoken since Natalie left in anger seven years ago, when her mother refused to support her chosen career... Read more

Heart Berries

A Memoir

By: Terese Marie Mailhot
Narrated by: Rainy Fields
Length: 3 hours 45 minutes

Heart Berries is a powerful, poetic memoir of a woman's coming of age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest. Having survived a profoundly dysfunctional upbringing only to find herself hospitalized and facing a dual diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II disorder; Terese Marie Mailhot is given a... Read more

Normal People

A Novel

By: Sally Rooney
Narrated by: Aoife McMahon
Length: 7 hours 34 minutes

“What a treat to discover Sally Rooney! This novel stands out shining from the current onslaught of mediocre prose and less-than-suspenseful thriller plots. Normal People is the story of a relationship between two high school classmates in a small town in Ireland, and how it changes over time, through their last year of college in Dublin.... Read more

More Happy Than Not

By: Adam Silvera
Narrated by: Ramón De Ocampo
Length: 8 hours 19 minutes

In his twisty, gritty, profoundly moving debut—called “mandatory reading” by the New York Times—Adam Silvera brings to life a charged, dangerous near-future summer in the Bronx.

In the months after his father’s suicide, it’s been tough for 16-year-old Aaron Soto to find happiness again—but he’s still gunning for it. With the support of his... Read more