Stronger Than You Know - Jolene Perry

Ali Mark
Jan 4, 2016
3 min read

Published in 2014.

Pages: 244

Number of books by author: 6 YA Novels

Genre: Young Adult Fiction

When someone saves Joy from her very own Hell, her Aunt and Uncle decide to take her in to prevent her from going into the foster care system. We follow Joy as she is on her own path of personal-discovery while trying to cope with her past and get acclimated

to her future.

You may like this book if you like the following sub-genres:

Childhood/Coming of Age
Depression/Mental Illness
Family/Family Life
Second Changes
Sexual/Domestic Violence

Goodreads users gave this book a 4.18. I think it was more deserving of a 3.00.

Pros: The descriptions, the actions, the thoughts that are associated with Joy's PTSD and anxiety are very well done. It is hard to accurately write these feelings and emotions without becoming the next DSM. But Perry does a really good job of writing it into a casual conversation by using not only her shrink, but her own personal stories and analysis of herself in combination with her Aunt and Uncle's observations about what is -and isn't- acceptable during the recovery of severe trauma. As someone who

experience many of the same emotions, feelings, and behaviors as Joy, it felt very realistic, and it was able to take me back to that time when I used to have to avoid people standing behind me, or when people couldn't touch me, or this or that; making it so easy to be empathetic to Joy... and not to the point where I felt like Joy was whining or playing the victim-card - and because of that this book deserves more credit than I can give it. This book could be the next Speak, if it wasn't so full of negatives.

The basic knowledge, the basic writing in this book made it easy to literally just breeze through from page to page, which was perfect for yesterday's cold & gloomy environment. (For some, with this subject matter, it may be a negative how basic it was, but for me, it was a nice transition from the heavier, 10-font size print books I've read over the course of the last few weeks.)

Cons:Half, give or take a chapter or two felt unneccessary. As I reviewed the chapter-by-chapter summary I did, most of the summarizations were "Joy did this." When I really wanted, "Joy did this and because she did, this also happened," but it was just like writing the same sentence over and over again. I felt as if Perry was just filling in pages to make the book 250 pages instead of 150 pages (which for me, wouldn't have been so bad because if each word on each page counts and portrays what it needed to, the book can still be worthy of itself).

This isn't so much a con as it is an observation - but if I didnt' have the past I did, I may not understand why Joy had a panic attack if someone recognized her; I wouldn't understand why she needed a security net to cope with existing. I think Perry could've maybe given a bit more information with the first page of the book from the standpoint of the psychiatrists' notes. I think it would've been helpful to see a brief definition of PTSD from the DSM that was translated into laments terms to be given to the Aunt or Uncle... or something that made it feel more-or-less explained.

The thing that may have driven this book even further into a hole was the lack of character growth. It was really all about Joy - and Joy growing, and Joy regressing, and it became kind of old. We saw character growth from other character, and while it was discussed over the last several chapters, what about the other three main characters? And what about the lack of presence from the shrink at the end? The book kind of dropped off into Joy-land and forgot that others characters made a huge impact on the book simply by being present.

And sadly, it was another YA book with another YA-predictible-ending. This is more of a pet-peeve than anything. Most YA books have this happy-ending with a huge moment of resolve (especially when we're talking about YA books about mental health issues). I am not the type of person who needs a happy ending. I just need a realistic one.