Audio: Girl on the line by Faith Gardner

Narrated by: Caitlin Davies

Length: 8 hrs and 49 mins

Release date: 01-19-21

Publisher: HarperAudio

YA Fiction

To review

You might have noticed by now that I like my YA emotional, it is the best YA. Here I want it real, and heart wrenching.

Journey tried to kill herself. She had a hard time before, she had ups that were high high, and lows that were bottomless. She was in an accident. She fell in love and was left. What really is going on is hard to know, some just want to give her pills and a diagnosis. 

It takes place before and after, until we get to a time when we can go forward. And yes it feels real and sad, she is struggling so much. At times she is going forward, but then she falls into that dark hole where her thoughts plague her again. She has a loving family, she has her best friend, but she can't tell them of these things.

And do not think there is some happy ending, she is not suddenly cured, but at least I can tell you that it did not make me cry, so you know that she will make it. I think I can spoil that. We need some hope.  And her hope is that she starts to see that she can get better, but she will never be fully hole.

I liked it. The sad and hard truths that were her life. But never going into really sad, it was life, she was human. We all have flaws.

I liked the narration, she had a  great young voice for Journey, and distinct voices for all. She brought emotion into her narration

Life’s tough when you didn’t expect to be living it.

But now that Journey has a future, she apparently also has to figure out what that future’s supposed to look like.

Some days the pain feels as fresh as that day. The one with the pills, the hospital, and the end that didn’t come. Her parents don’t know how to speak to her. Her best friend cracks all the wrong jokes. Her bipolar II disorder feels like it swallows her completely.

But other days—they feel like revelations. Like meeting the beautiful Etta, a community college student who is a world unto herself. Or walking into the office of the volunteer hotline and discovering a community as simultaneously strong and broken as she is.

Or uncovering the light within herself that she didn’t know existed.