Highly Illogical Behavior

Its been quite a while since I read a book in a day. This book was just so addicting.

I don't suffer from bad agoraphobia, I can leave the house but only if all my skin if covered and only if its not too sunny (I live Australia so its always sunny)
If I don't cover my skin, or if its too sunny, I'll be inconsolable. I have to cancel doctors appointments all the time because the sun is out. My fear of the sun is keeping me inside.
Ive been diagnosed with agoraphobia, and I have been getting worse with it, but I don't have it a bad as some do, like Solomon from this book.

Après plusieurs lectures presque exclusivement en français, j'avais envie de reprendre mon rythme où j'alterne les livres en français et ceux en anglais. J'ai choisi ce roman young adult de John Corey Whaley, un auteur américain que je n'avais jamais lu auparavant. J'avais découvert ce livre il y a peu de temps sur Goodreads et le résumé m'avait tout de suite donné envie de le lire :

Sixteen-year-old Solomon has agoraphobia. He hasn't left his house in 3 years. Ambitious Lisa is desperate to get into a top-tier psychology program. And so when Lisa learns about Solomon, she decides to befriend him, cure him, and then write about it for her college application. To earn Solomon's trust, she introduces him to her boyfriend Clark, and starts to reveal her own secrets. But what started as an experiment leads to a real friendship, with all three growing close. But when the truth comes out, what erupts could destroy them all. Funny and heartwarming, Highly Illogical Behavior is a fascinating exploration of what makes us tick, and how the connections between us may be the most important things of all.

It was the thing they had most in common—all they wanted was a quiet place to be invisible and pretend the world away. And that's exactly what they had before things got weird. Now, no matter what they told themselves or each other, it would always be different. After all, no first love goes away overnight, especially one that's always right in front of you, but just out of your reach.

I'll never forget that day at the fountain. The other kids laughed and whispered, even when the principal had gotten him out of the water and wrapped a jacket around him. They just kept laughing and pointing as he walked by, dripping wet and never looking up from the ground. Most everyone I knew heard some ridiculous gossip about him by the end of that day. But then, within weeks, it was like he'd never existed. And that's when I got the saddest. They never brought him up again. Like we belonged there and he belonged somewhere else. It's not too hard to disappear when no one's looking for you. That's what we do sometimes. We let people disappear. We want them to. If everyone just stays quiet and out of the way, then the rest of us can pretend everything's fine. But everything is not fine. Not as long as people like Solomon have to hide. We have to learn to share the world with them.

Solomon has panic attacks and an episode at school, and now he doesn't leave his home. Lisa dreams of being admitted into the country's second best psychology program and decides to try to cure Sol and use this as the basis for her admittance essay. Lisa and Sol become friends and that does help Sol. But the story doesn't end here....

This is a fine, fine story of friendship and misunderstanding and mental illness and drive, I think. It is the rare story where all the characters—Sol, Lisa, Lisa's boyfriend, Sol's parents and grandmother—all the characters are quite admirable and yet interesting, too.

So happy I finally got around to this story.