Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - Chaos Theory

Super fast read and one of the best portrayals of young love and mental health struggles I've seen in YA. I love how smart and talented these main characters are and how even the secondary characters get nuanced, realistic portrayals.

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delz's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful informative sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Nic Stone begins this book my explaining how much she hates the term “mental illness”, so I’ll say this story is about two people whose brains work differently. Shelbi and Walter/Andy meet over text, accidentally. Walter/Andy is drunk texting his ex, but he’s off by just one number. It just so happens that the person on the other end is very empathetic, tries to talk him down and makes him swear he won’t drive. Unfortunately he doesn’t follow this sage advice and crashes his car. Shelbi figures out what happened and introduces herself as his anonymous texter. They are both dealing with their own personal stuff, but they decide to be “friends.” This story seems very personal to Stone. She gives the care and respect to the characters and their different working brains. The reader may learn to appreciate the differences all humans live with whether we can physically see them or not.

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atvreads's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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laheath's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Excellent dual POV representation of mental illness (like the author, I hate that term too), as 2 teens also deal with all the normal pressures of school, family, and romance. Their individual stories are actually more complicated than average, including a parent running for political office, death of a sibling, changing schools 3 times in as many years plus a cross-country move, and having a parent famous for writing steamy urban romance novels. One of them already knows how to protect herself and isn't ready to let anyone else in and the other needs someone to show him he's worthy of being loved before he goes too far in hurting himself or someone else. Great characters in their support systems too, although one had too many issues of her own to be helpful.

I was so glad to hear the author's note included in the audiobook. Heads up, for those who usually skip this, the story continues after this, so don't think it ended abruptly (can't say if the format is the same in the print version).

Lots of trigger warnings for this book, so read with caution, as the author mentions in her intro note.

Content Warnings