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The Year It Rained: A Novel
Having survived three suicide attempts and treatment in a series of mental hospitals, seventeen-year-old Elizabeth continues to fight for happiness in a life filled with confusion and turbulence
213 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1985
107 people want to read
About the author
Crescent Dragonwagon
48 books71 followersCrescent Dragonwagon is the daughter of the writers Charlotte Zolotow and the late Hollywood biographer Maurice Zolotow. She is the author of 40 published books, including cookbooks, children's books, and novels. With her late husband, Ned Shank, Crescent owned the award-winning Dairy Hollow House, a country inn and restaurant in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, for eighteen years. She teaches writing coast to coast and is the co-founder (with Ned) of the non-profit Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 14, 2017
This book meant a lot to me as teenager. Felt like it was real, and inside the experience of mental illness, instead of outside pathologizing it like everything else I had read. I am pretty sure its ownvoices, but I can't remember why I think that. It definitely felt like that to me, resonated in that way. I did a reread to see how it held up. (Updated review 4/13/17)
I read this book over and over as a teenager. My paperback copy was very well worn, and something I kept into my late 30s until it mildewed, though it had been years since I'd reread. Because some books have your heart. This is one of my heart books. There are phrases and sentences in it that felt like old friends when I reread it now (at the age of 42), gave me this feel of comfort and recognition because they helped me so much when I was struggling so much.
What I did not remember was how much fat hatred there is in this book. I don't think I blocked it, though I was a fat teenager who hated myself for being fat so it's possible. I think its more that fat oppression and fat hatred was so much a part of everything in my life, including my own thoughts about myself, that I kind of didn't even notice it? It's very much there, though. Its esp bad in the descriptions of & scenes with the two minor fat characters, Cam and Sid (esp at 4-5% and at 31-34%), but it's threaded through the book, unfortunately.
This book tells the story of after the suicidality and schizophrenic episodes, after they found a treatment that helped, what it is like for Elizabeth to grapple with the impact of her psych disability on her own life and in her family. It is very present focused, in many ways, and really centers her struggle to claim stewardship of her life, to figure out what she wants and needs, to deal with what's left after her symptoms have abated some. I realize now how radical it is to tell that story in a YA novel. For that matter, to tell it in any novel. Most books about psych disability have hopeful endings right when treatment starts. This book tells the story of someone who had some very poor and rather terrible psych treatment, and some helpful, but mostly has had bad treatment experiences, and is hopeful for reasons having nothing to do with the hope of cure or treatment. And it is fiercely, defiantly hopeful.
I cannot tell you how much it means to me, someone who has had some good and helpful experiences with psych treatment, but also some really terrible and traumatizing ones, esp the ones I had in childhood, to have had this book in my life as a teenager, and to read it now. Just the fact that it can hold that oh so common reality of incompetent, dehumanizing, and terrible psych treatment, and also hold the reality that sometimes some treatment helps, but does not cure, and reach towards a hopeful ending...it means so very much.
I cannot speak to whether it would resonate for youth today; it may be so woefully out of touch and anachronistic as to feel more like historical fiction, and work...or really not. (Pubbed in 1985 but set in the late 70s I think.)
I will say that I still really like how its so deeply Elizabeths story and it has no distance from her at all. We witness her brain spinning and intellectualizing and trying to think through multiple layers of meaning in complex problems and dynamics between people. We witness her lying, and hitchhiking and having sex with men who are much older than her, and getting freaked out when she actually has sex that she enjoys, and worrying about her friend who is hospitalized but unsure what to do, and deeply struggling in her complex family relationships. She doesn't really "learn lessons" about these things. She makes choices, and some of them are pretty clearly bad ones to adult reader me but not framed as such by her most of the time, and she continues to make choices and seek what she needs, and be flawed and try her best, and it just makes the story feel real, and so deeply non-pathologizing in this way that is such an intense relief, and especially was in 1985 and in that generation of YA about psych disability.
There is a lot that is potentially triggering in this book, I want to be clear about that. There is also a lot that is really hopeful about this book, and about starting the story at the point in Elizabeth's life that it does. There are flashbacks to earlier moments, particularly near the end of the book, but the meat of the story is the what now, what next after treatment really begins to help, after suicide attempts and bad psych treatments and multiple hospitalizations, after all that, what can life be like, look like? What is it like to live with, and manage, psych disability? This is something I needed books about so much as a teenager, and still need them, so much.
Trigger warnings:
I read this book over and over as a teenager. My paperback copy was very well worn, and something I kept into my late 30s until it mildewed, though it had been years since I'd reread. Because some books have your heart. This is one of my heart books. There are phrases and sentences in it that felt like old friends when I reread it now (at the age of 42), gave me this feel of comfort and recognition because they helped me so much when I was struggling so much.
What I did not remember was how much fat hatred there is in this book. I don't think I blocked it, though I was a fat teenager who hated myself for being fat so it's possible. I think its more that fat oppression and fat hatred was so much a part of everything in my life, including my own thoughts about myself, that I kind of didn't even notice it? It's very much there, though. Its esp bad in the descriptions of & scenes with the two minor fat characters, Cam and Sid (esp at 4-5% and at 31-34%), but it's threaded through the book, unfortunately.
This book tells the story of after the suicidality and schizophrenic episodes, after they found a treatment that helped, what it is like for Elizabeth to grapple with the impact of her psych disability on her own life and in her family. It is very present focused, in many ways, and really centers her struggle to claim stewardship of her life, to figure out what she wants and needs, to deal with what's left after her symptoms have abated some. I realize now how radical it is to tell that story in a YA novel. For that matter, to tell it in any novel. Most books about psych disability have hopeful endings right when treatment starts. This book tells the story of someone who had some very poor and rather terrible psych treatment, and some helpful, but mostly has had bad treatment experiences, and is hopeful for reasons having nothing to do with the hope of cure or treatment. And it is fiercely, defiantly hopeful.
I cannot tell you how much it means to me, someone who has had some good and helpful experiences with psych treatment, but also some really terrible and traumatizing ones, esp the ones I had in childhood, to have had this book in my life as a teenager, and to read it now. Just the fact that it can hold that oh so common reality of incompetent, dehumanizing, and terrible psych treatment, and also hold the reality that sometimes some treatment helps, but does not cure, and reach towards a hopeful ending...it means so very much.
I cannot speak to whether it would resonate for youth today; it may be so woefully out of touch and anachronistic as to feel more like historical fiction, and work...or really not. (Pubbed in 1985 but set in the late 70s I think.)
I will say that I still really like how its so deeply Elizabeths story and it has no distance from her at all. We witness her brain spinning and intellectualizing and trying to think through multiple layers of meaning in complex problems and dynamics between people. We witness her lying, and hitchhiking and having sex with men who are much older than her, and getting freaked out when she actually has sex that she enjoys, and worrying about her friend who is hospitalized but unsure what to do, and deeply struggling in her complex family relationships. She doesn't really "learn lessons" about these things. She makes choices, and some of them are pretty clearly bad ones to adult reader me but not framed as such by her most of the time, and she continues to make choices and seek what she needs, and be flawed and try her best, and it just makes the story feel real, and so deeply non-pathologizing in this way that is such an intense relief, and especially was in 1985 and in that generation of YA about psych disability.
There is a lot that is potentially triggering in this book, I want to be clear about that. There is also a lot that is really hopeful about this book, and about starting the story at the point in Elizabeth's life that it does. There are flashbacks to earlier moments, particularly near the end of the book, but the meat of the story is the what now, what next after treatment really begins to help, after suicide attempts and bad psych treatments and multiple hospitalizations, after all that, what can life be like, look like? What is it like to live with, and manage, psych disability? This is something I needed books about so much as a teenager, and still need them, so much.
Trigger warnings:
July 19, 2016
If The Catcher in the Rye and The Bell Jar had a lovechild, it would be Crescent Dragonwagon 's (yes, that's her real name) The Year It Rained. Having been admitted to (and banned from) various psychiatric hospitals and boarding schools, 17-year-old Elizabeth Stein is not sure where she belongs. Her parents are on the brink of divorce, she hates the "special" school she attends, and her best friend is far away, mentally as well as physically. Like Holden Caulfied and Esther Greenwood, Elizabeth, fresh from a hospitalization following a suicide attempt, is weary, troubled, aloof and jaded; she can't figure out the adults that populate her life, not her successful and overbearing mother, or her distant alcoholic father, and certainly not from the various psychiatrists and therapists she's sees for her mental distress. It's not until she tries "vitamin therapy" does she begin to recover.
This is not a book with a lot of action; more pointedly, it's a rich tapestry of complex characters living their lives as best they know how. Elizabeth has a distinct voice: introspective, intelligent, darkly funny, self-depracating and ultimately hopeful, in spite of the challenges she faces. This is definitely not a "feel good" book, but it is so well written you can't help but be drawn into the various lives that are interconnected like a spider's web. It's an engrossing read.
This is not a book with a lot of action; more pointedly, it's a rich tapestry of complex characters living their lives as best they know how. Elizabeth has a distinct voice: introspective, intelligent, darkly funny, self-depracating and ultimately hopeful, in spite of the challenges she faces. This is definitely not a "feel good" book, but it is so well written you can't help but be drawn into the various lives that are interconnected like a spider's web. It's an engrossing read.
April 26, 2015
"Or that one about the unripe avocado opening. The one with the line 'scarves of every glossy leaves,' about being bitter but patient with your own bitterness so you could learn to be wise and be kind of returned to whatever innocence you might have once had before you became bitter and..."
said Elizabeth to Gina, her favorite author about her book.
I liked this book, light yet well-crisp I couldn't put it down unless my eyes so hurt I couldn't bear. A book about self lost and seeking, mother and daughter relationship and writing. Feels so real to me.
said Elizabeth to Gina, her favorite author about her book.
I liked this book, light yet well-crisp I couldn't put it down unless my eyes so hurt I couldn't bear. A book about self lost and seeking, mother and daughter relationship and writing. Feels so real to me.
May 17, 2015
You know what... I really like this.
The story of a teenager trying to cope after multiple suicide attempts. She comes off slightly disconnected from the world. She spends a lot of time reflecting on her past. There's very little physical action to the story. And I love that. I think it's hard to keep someone's attention in books when they're so internally driven, and it's pulled off very well here.
Impressed. I'm glad I took a chance on this.
The story of a teenager trying to cope after multiple suicide attempts. She comes off slightly disconnected from the world. She spends a lot of time reflecting on her past. There's very little physical action to the story. And I love that. I think it's hard to keep someone's attention in books when they're so internally driven, and it's pulled off very well here.
Impressed. I'm glad I took a chance on this.
July 28, 2011
A bildungsroman about a young woman and her dysfunctional relationships, first published in 1985, but set apparently in the late 60's or early 70's. I enjoyed reading it 22 years ago and have revisited it a few times since.
October 21, 2009
Good book!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews