10 Best Books to Read During Mental Health Awareness Month

This book is the perfect read to remind us that we must acknowledge our aching heart, or else we could end up perpetuating it on others. Bittersweet brings people together as it helps us remember that every person knows or will know loss and suffering, and, because of that, we can embrace the bittersweet parts of life and connect with others even in our times of heartache and struggle. 

In Be A Triangle, Lilly Singh produces a safe space for readers to create inner peace for themselves. While acknowledging the experiences that often surround diversity, this book also pushes readers to create a solid foundation that will remain unchanged but upon which readers can build a home within themselves. An uplifting read, challenging people to adjust their mindset and internal dialogue, this book is perfect for anyone looking to find their happiness within.

In this memoir by Melissa Bond, readers will be captivated by her journey through her accidental drug addiction due to her doctor over-prescribing benzodiazepines and regularly increasing her dosage. After her body shuts down due to the drugs, she then begins her journey of tapering off the pills slowly through a months-long process. A book full of fight and addiction, Blood Orange Night is a book readers won’t be able to put down.   

For an incredibly honest account of living with anxiety, Andrea Petersen’s On Edge: A Journey Through Anxiety is the book to read. When Andrea was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder at 20, she realized she had been experiencing panic attacks since she was a child. Interweaving her own personal journey of trying to understand and master her anxiety and a scientific look at the biology of anxiety along with the groundbreaking research that might result in new treatments, this book is the perfect read for anyone who wants a brave and empowering account of anxiety. 

This book is both about the failings of the mental healthcare system and actionable steps for people in mental health crises and their families, focusing on what he calls the three Ps: People, Place, and Purpose. Ultimately hopeful, this book, written by the former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, is based on a lifetime of research and experience and is a must-read. 

This beautiful YA debut lingers in your mind long after you’ve finished reading it. It follows Leigh Chen Sanders who is certain that when her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird. When she travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time, she’s determined to find her mother, the bird, and in the process, she develops a new relationship with her grandparents and uncovers family secrets. Full of grief, hope, and more, this book and all its complexities will capture your heart. 

This YA novel is all about being queer in the public eye and follows Hunter, a boy band star who’s just had a very painful and public breakup with his first boyfriend. In the midst of his heartbreak, The Label still expects him to be the perfect queer role model for teens, and, unfortunately for him, The Label feels like the attraction he feels for Kavian, the new drummer for the opening band, might hinder the perfect gay boy Hunter plays for the camera as a member of his own band, Kiss & Tell. Full of heart and swoon, Kiss & Tell is a must-read about the pressures that come with being a celebrity. 

This unflinching story of a girl who intimately knows the pain of loss and the journey that grief takes her on Girl in Pieces is an amazing and heartbreaking book you won’t want to miss. At 17, Charlotte Davis has already lost so much that she’s learning to forget, to forget her father and the river, her best friend who’s gone forever, and her mother who has nothing left to give her, and the broken glass helps her forget all that, giving her scars that harden her heart just a little more despite the hurt that it still harbors.

Full of sisterhood and the pain of love and loss, A Year to the Day is a book that promises to tug at your heartstrings and empty your tear ducts. Leo can’t remember anything about the night of the accident other than the fact that she left with her older sister Nina, and East, Nina’s boyfriend. But Nina was killed by a drunk driver, and Leo discovers through a friendship formed by their mutual grief, that East remembers every detail of the accident but refuses to tell her anything about that night. Told in reverse chronological order, this book will linger long after you finish. 

The Lucky Ones is about survival, grief, and reckoning. May was the only one to walk out of the band room 11 months ago, the day her twin brother and her classmates were killed by a school shooting. And Zach? He only has one friend stick around after his mom, a lawyer, decided to defend the shooter at trial. When the two meet after being dragged to a band practice by their friends, they both start to figure out that surviving might actually be an option after all.