Losing Adam

Great read. The author wrote a story that was interesting and moved at a pace that kept me engaged. The characters were easy to invest in.

This story has a deep dark side along with a fairy tale.
Adam is starting college and is into drama and stage plays. He is very intelligent and comes from a nice home with a strict father. He meets Jenny and loves her from the moment he sets eyes on her. She is going to the same college and they make great plans together for when they both finally leave home. Then Adam life gets completely turned around when he starts hearing voices, in particular the voice of the Snow Queen. His whole demeanor changes and he seems to turn away from Jenny who is both hurt and mystified.
This story takes us on Adam's sad and troubling journey, his diagnosis and how it completely changed him.

It starts out as an average teen romance but then turns very real as the subject of mental illness is portrayed. An important book that realistically captures how loved ones have to deal with a disease that we still don’t know much about. I’ve had to deal with this in my own life and I really appreciate how this author was careful yet precise on how she describes what Adam is going through. It was painful for me to read (some parts) because my son didn’t survive his battle. I really hope this book gets the attention it deserves. The opportunity to open any dialogue is priceless. Thank you for this book.

Losing Adam was a beautiful story about a terrifying mental illness. The story is told from Adam and Jenny's points of view as they begin their college life together and Adam is taken by Schizophrenia. The story shows the struggle Adam faces as he tries to figure out what is real and what is not. Jenny his girlfriend since 9th grade sees the changes in him but does not know what is happening. When Adam confides in her about hearing voices Jenny agrees to not tell anyone. We even get a glimpse at what the parents go through as well. This book tries to help us understand a little bit of what someone suffering from this devastating disease can experience.

Wow... Losing Adam is frighteningly real. This is the first book I've read that portrays mental illness and all it's horrifying aspects realistically without making a character quirk or playing it down and romanticizing it. I would have given it five stars, but I think we were too focused on how Adam's Schizophrenia affected Jenny rather than Adam himself. I do recognize that mental illness affects loved ones as well, but I feel like we need to start focusing on the victims themselves since they are the ones to get the worst of it.
It's scary how close to home Adam's suffering hit. I myself was a victim of mental illness, I was "lucky" enough for it to be depression and severe anxiety (several different types it turns out) and not Schizophrenia, and in the sequences where he was feeling paranoid about people watching him, hating him and wanting to kill him... I could really Identify with that.
I applaud Adrienne Clarke for delivering such a raw and realistic sight into mental illness, and hope others will learn how to do so in the future.