Me on Ultraviolet

Title: Ultraviolet
Author: R.J. Anderson
Release Date: September 1, 2011
Publisher: Carolrhoda Books

Sixteen-year-old Alison has been sent to a mental hospital for teens after the most popular girl in school disappeared and Alison was found with blood on her hands. But the case is a mystery: there's no body, and Alison's condition is difficult to diagnose. Even she can't explain what happened: one moment she's arguing with Tori, the next Tori disintegrated. But that's impossible. Right?

This book was so unique and unexpected, the story of a girl confused by impossible memories and afraid of what people will think of how she sees the world.

I love how the author wrote Alison and her synesthesia. It's not a condition I have or have ever listened to someone talk about, but it was so interesting to read this book and gain an insight into how people move about the world when letters have colours and lies have tastes and your senses don't work the same way as others. I imagine that if you lived your life and didn't know it was a neurological condition, if you instead thought you were insane, living a "normal" life like a "normal" person would be incredibly difficult.

My heart continuously went out to Alison and her struggles in the psychiatric hospital. Her confusion and frustration and desperation to find out what happened to Tori was palpable. I wanted to reach into the book, pull her out of the hospital, and help her search for Tori.

More than once I wondered if this book gave me what The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer didn't, and in a sense it did, but not in the way that this was better because they're both great books. This book give me answers, gave me an explanation to what was happening to Alison and why she ended up in Pine Hills. It's that addition of explaining the confusion and the distress that made me less confused as I was when I read Mara Dyer. Sometimes, you can't wait.

R.J. Anderson gives readers an amazing present with this book. Something so unique and fresh and awe-inspiring should be coveted and enjoyed, held close and secreted away for a time when you feel the overwhelming need to read about a cracked and fragile but oh so strong young woman. This book will stay in my bookcase for decades to come.

(I purchased a copy of this book.)