Mental Illness

The novel explores the way in which mental health issues can isolate individuals and make them feel trapped and powerless within their own heads, despite what they might present on the surface. Pip starts out the series as a happy, intelligent young girl who believes in justice and the overarching good of the world. During the events of the second novel, however, she loses her faith in the justice and much of humanity when an accused rapist is set free, and she suffers intense post-traumatic stress after witnessing her friend, Stanley, shot by her other friend, Charlie. The combination of losing her faith in the importance of truth and the post-traumatic-stress she experiences leads her to feel overwhelmingly isolated, angry, paranoid, and depressed.

Although Pip has a bright future at Columbia ahead of her, a loving family, a supportive group of friends, and the world...