Movember: It's all about the moustache (and mental health)

As we near the end of Movember (Moustache and November slid neatly together), I thought I might highlight a book I've read recently that this strange month of growing moustaches is about--men's mental health.  I can quickly come up with 15+ books about teenage girls and suicide, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or anxiety but I pretty much came up with zilch for teenage guys.  Which is weird considering that for many years in the U.S., the suicide rate has been about 4 times higher among men than among women.  Movember is all about men and their health--cancer, mental illness and healthy lifestyle are the main focuses but the general idea is to build awareness of mental health, to motivate guys to take care of themselves, and to destigmatize seeking medical help of any kind!  It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini is just that--kind of a funny story about a teenage guy who is suffering from depression and fighting suicide.

Beneath The Surface: Dystopian Round-Up

This year's teen summer reading program is themed Beneath the Surface! The best thing about reading is getting to learn about new ideas and realities that are unfamiliar to us. In dystopias, the characters are very often placed in situations that are just as alien, and they must search "beneath the surface" to discover what the truth is about their post-apocalyptic world. Come and kick your summer reading adventure off with these great dystopian titles!

 In Suzanne Young's The Program, teen suicide is an international epidemic. Sloane has already lost a brother to the disease, and her parents are desperate to keep her alive. She can't cry or express any honest emotion, because at the first sign of depression she will be shipped off to the Program and return stripped of her memories. When her boyfriend, James, begins to spiral into the illness, Sloane must find a way to keep him alive or risk him losing all memories of her forever.

 Incarceron by Catherine Fisher introduces a society where criminals and their descendents are sentenced to live in Incarceron, a living prison that enacts its own punishments. Finn has spent his entire life in the prison with no hope of escape. All that changes when one day he finds a key that allows him to speak to the warden's daughter outside Incarceron, and plan an impossile escape.