His lips touch my stomach, each wound, each scar.
Release Date: March 15, 2022
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Price: $11.99 (hardcover)
PLOT SUMMARY
It’s been three months since The Night on the Bathroom Floor–when Lily found her older sister Alice hurting herself. Ever since then, Lily has been desperately trying to keep things together, for herself and for her family. But now Alice is coming home from her treatment program and it is becoming harder for Lily to ignore all of the feelings she’s been trying to outrun. Enter Micah, a new student at school with a past of his own. He was in treatment with Alice and seems determined to get Lily to process not only Alice’s experience but her own. Because Lily has secrets, too. Compulsions she can’t seem to let go of and thoughts she can’t drown out. When Lily and Micah embark on an art project for school involving finding poetry in unexpected places, she realizes that it’s the words she’s been swallowing that desperately want to break through.
GRADE: A
REVIEW:
This was a gut-wrenching journey that vividly depicts the difficulty of dealing with an anxiety disorder while also dealing with people in your life that have attempted suicide. Lily’s world isn’t the same ever since her sister Alice slit her veins – but she’s trying her best to keep up a happy facade at school. But it all quickly crumbles the moment Alice returns home from rehab. In the midst of all this, she meets and falls for the new boy Micah – who also stayed at the same rehab center that Alice did after he tried to take his own life.
The reader can’t help but cheer for these very broken souls and yearn so much to see them heal and find some solace in the darkness.
Told from Alice’s POV and her poetry, this was a very emotional read that I simply couldn’t put down, in fact, I read it in two days. I highly suggest this book if you want to read a very raw yet ultimately uplifting story. However, there are many trigger warnings for those who suffer from depression, suicidal thoughts, self-harm, and anxiety.
*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Delacorte Press for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
The Inkblotters 