Christin Clement / Edge columnist
The young adult fiction novel A Tragic Kind of Wonderful written by Eric Lindstrom and published in 2017 follows the story of Mel Hannigan, a 16-year-old who is living with bipolar disorder, that she is hiding from her friendship group and about trying to recover from her brother’s death.
It’s also about her finding a boy she likes in the old people’s care house where she is working. On top with all her personal struggles, there is a toxic friend group with an egocentric character who is causing a lot of drama before vanishing away to Europe.
It is about Mel’s hidden story to heal from everything she’s been through and to try to fix her broken friendship group. The upcoming secrets, issues and traumas cause confusion in Mel’s teenage life but the only thing that she really wants is to say goodbye to her dead brother and to finish with her problems.
Everything in her life starts to collapse after the friendship group starts to separate and she tries to get everything right but living with her bipolar disorder and taking medications every day makes her life difficult.
Lindstrom’s novel has a very simple writing style which makes it easy for readers to understand. At the beginning of every new chapter is a little instruction of the feelings from the main character Mel which makes it completely understandable for readers. Some scenes could be possible hard for some sensitive readers.
The reading level of the novel is understanding and interesting and therefore good for high school students. The book is made for young adults because it covers all the issues and upcoming experiences that most teenagers experience in their teenage life. A tragic kind of wonderful is definitely a good choice for high schoolers as many teenagers can identify themselves with the situations and issues in the novel.
