Name: Till It Stops Beating
Author: Hannah R. Goodman
Genre: Young-adult
Publication date: July 5, 2018
*NOTE: I am extremely grateful to Rachel’s Random Resources for sending me this book. However this does not at all influence my honest opinions regarding the book. This is a spoiler-free review. All opinions are solely mine.
My review:
‘Till It Stops Beating’ is a book written in first-person and we follow the experiences and actions of a seventeen year-old girl named Maddie Hickman. Throughout the book, Maddie recounts her journey and tells us all about her current situations which have so much to do with her past and the people she had been with.
Maddie has a supportive family and she loves her family a lot. She worries about them and just wants to see them happy. She also has two amazing friends who support and love her.
Maddie deals with anxiety. A lot of anxiety. Anxiety that rips down her senses and sensibility. She has so much to deal with in the current moment that it all leads to her having anxiety attacks and being bed-ridden for days on end. Adding to her headaches are the memories of her ex-boyfriends.
While Maddie has her let-down moments, she also has her I-can-do-this moments. This is one of the things that I really like about the book. Oh, I can’t let you know more about the book without giving you spoilers!
I love that this book seems to be raw (in good sense). It feels like the experiences recounted are absolutely true. I also like that the emotions have been portrayed in an AMAZING manner. Every little experience that one might go through while struggling with anxiety is presented in a detailed manner and I love that. Also, this book focusses a lot on family and familial relationships so yay!
I definitely recommend this book to anybody who like reading YA contemporary. Literally anybody. There’s no chance (I believe) that you will not like the book!
About the author:
Often referred to as “the teenage whisperer”, Hannah R. Goodman’s twenty-year career working with teenagers includes the titles teacher, tutor, coach, and, more recently, mental health counselor. Hannah has written essays about mental health for various online publications. Her work has appeared on MindBodyGreen, OC87 Recovery Diaries, Zencare.co, and The Mighty. Though she has previously earned the title author with her first three books, the last was released in 2009 and all were self-published. This time around, indie publisher Black Rose Writing released her novel Till It Stops Beating this summer.
Hannah’s first YA novel, My Sister’s Wedding, won the first place award for The Writer’s Digest International Self-Publishing Contest, 2004, children’s book division. She published the follow-up, My Summer Vacation, in May 2006, which went on to win a bronze IPPY in 2007. The third Maddie book, Fear of Falling, was released in the fall of 2009 and was praised by teachers and readers for tackling subjects like homophobia and coming out. She’s published young adult short stories on Amazon’s Shorts, in an anthology entitled Bound Is The Bewitching Lilith, and in the journal Balancing The Tides. She also has written columns for The Jewish Voice & Herald. Recent, previous projects include Sucker Literary, which features emerging YA authors and All The Way YA, a group blog of writers telling the real deal about writing and publishing YA fiction.
Hannah is a member of ARIA (Association of Rhode Island Authors) as well as a graduate of Pine Manor College’s Solstice Program in Creative Writing where she earned an MFA in Writing For Young People. She resides in Bristol, RI with her husband, two daughters, and black and white cat named Zoe.
*Credits for author’s bio: Rachel’s Random Resources
Find the author on Goodreads, Twitter, Twitter, LinkdIn, and on her website!
Amazon Author Central:Â https://www.amazon.com/Hannah-R.-Goodman/
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Meher
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