Book Review: Words on Bathroom Walls by Julia Walton

Title: Words on Bathroom Walls

Author: Julia Walton

Genre: YA Realistic Fiction

Number of Pages: 304

Rating: B+

Recommended?: Yes

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Do you know that feeling where you read a book and it just seems weirdly relevant to your life at the time? I have severe OCD and I’m on a med combination that’s sorta working, but I live every day with the knowledge that things probably aren’t going to stay good for much longer. So when I read this book about a teenage boy named Adam who’s on an experimental drug to treat his schizophrenia while trying to have a normal life, my heart went out to him. Thankfully I don’t have a mental illness as serious as schizophrenia but I still related to a lot of Adam’s thoughts and feelings.

I’m not sure about the representation of schizophrenia (it seemed a little bit sensationalistic, with Adam getting repeated visits from vivid hallucinatory characters) but I really enjoyed the story. Adam was a great character and his voice was both dry, witty, and endearing. I’m not a fan of romance but I thought Adam’s relationship with his classmate Maya actually worked. She actually seemed like she could be a real person, instead of the manic pixie dream girl type character that’s common in this genre.

I also really liked how the story ended on a positive note without minimizing the long-term implications of Adam’s illness. I thought it was the perfect combination of hope and realism. The side characters were pretty one-dimensional and Adam’s anti-Catholic sentiment seemed a little extreme for somebody who was raised outside the church, but overall I liked this book way more than I expected and I’m definitely interested in seeing the movie adaptation one of these days too.