A Shock of Recognition: An Exclusive Guest Post from David Levithan, Editor of Alice Oseman’s Solitaire 

The first time I read Alice Oseman’s Solitaire, I was startled to read a character being so honest on the page about her own bleakness. There is no romanticism in Tori Spring’s voice, nor are there easy answers in the story she is telling. But there is that shock of recognition… and sometimes that shock of recognition is what we readers need when we venture into someone else’s story, as a way of finding an entryway into our own.   

Flash forward a few years, and I am not only an admiring reader and fellow YA author, but I am also the book’s American editor. For this new US publication of Solitaire, Alice and I got to do an extensive bonus Q&A for the back of the book. I asked about readers’ reactions to Tori (who is not only the protagonist of this book, but also a major character in the Heartstopper series). Here’s what Alice replied: 

“Many readers have appreciated the rawness of Tori’s melancholy. She is likely dealing with undiagnosed depression, and this manifests in her complete apathy to almost every aspect of her life, except for her brother Charlie, whose situation is — though she’d never admit it — incredibly stressful and upsetting for Tori. The rawness of Tori’s psyche has been polarizing to readers, but many have appreciated the honest portrayal of someone in such a dark mental place. I’ve heard from readers who’ve found it relatable and cathartic to read and who have felt understood in a way they haven’t before. I felt a similar way when reading many books as a teen. Although Solitaire doesn’t provide many helpful answers, there is power in simply seeing your feelings written in a book and consequently knowing that you’re not alone.” 

I think this is such an important observation, and the heart of why I love Alice’s novels and so many other YA books. They give us distance from our experience (i.e., we are reading about someone else), and then use the safety of that distance to guide us back toward an understanding of ourselves.  

It is a paradox that many of us authors face — we’re often writing the books that our main characters most need to read.  Although I dare say that the Tori Spring in Solitaire would not take kindly to book recommendations from a random guy on a blog, I do like the notion of her secretly getting her hands on a copy of Solitaire and having that meaningful shock of recognition. I’d also love to give her (and readers who share her struggles) copies of Bill Konigsberg’s The Bridge, Francisco X. Stork’s forthcoming I Am Not Alone, Jasmine Warga’s My Heart and Other Black Holes, and Wai Chim’s The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling— all examples of YA novels that engage with issues of mental health in honest and meaningful ways. 

I’m far from a teen, but I’m still reading novels for that shock of recognition, or that perfect articulation of the thing that I didn’t quite know that I knew.  There’s something both perfectly solitary about that… and the opposite of solitary at the same time. 

Also By Alice Oseman