Suicide Notes by Michael Thomas Ford

Jeff isn't crazy. At least that's what he keeps telling himself. But when he wakes up on New Year's Day in the hospital psychiatric ward with bandages around his wrists, it'll be hard to convince anyone else. Now forced to spend 45 days in the hospital, Jeff resorts to jokes and sarcasm to make it through the day. But as time goes on, he begins to see the other patients for who they really are and learns a lot about himself in the process.

So this book is about suicide, not the most joyous subject. But the back cover of the book called it "compelling, witty and refreshingly real," which I hoped meant it would be thought-provoking. So I was a little disappointed when I didn't really learn anything from the book. Jeff cracks a lot of jokes and some of them were really funny. But it's a little hypocritical to make fun of "crazy" people when you're in the psych ward too. It was nice that he could find humor in the situation, but the jokes and sarcasm started getting ridiculous. I sorta liked the book through the middle, as much as you can like this type of book. About three-fourths through the novel there is some inappropiate content and I'm not that conservative or anything, but really it was too much. It was pretty graphic, and anyone under 14 might not be ready for this book. When you finally discover Jeff's reason for committing suicide, it's thrown in there last minute, but it has a twist which redeemed the book slightly.

3 out of 10.

Release Date: October 2008