Suicide Watch, Kelley York

Reading this book is near to the experience of undergoing mental rehabilitation, it gets you through the dark places gracefully, and ends up in a hopeful tone, but not a fairy tale tone. Reading this two years ago put an end of my masochistic attachment to suicidal fictional characters, afterwards I started going out more, so I can’t be more grateful for Kelley York for this thrilling and therapeutic piece of work. She actually put my fascination into words in her description of Suicide Watch, she said “This book isn’t meant to preach or to school, but simply to follow the journey of those who could be saved”.

Suicide Watch’s protagonist is Vincent, he has been a foster kid for as long as he can remember, always moving from a foster family to another when they get bored of him, until he found Maggie who Vincent kind of filled the void she felt after the dead of her son, Maggie and Vincent were so similar in any aspect, she was the reason he was behaving and functioning in life, but everything changes for Vincent when Maggie is dead, actually it’s the first image we confront in the book. Maggie was the reason Vincent didn’t take his own life, and vice versa.

Another grotesque image in the begging of the book is the conversation between Vinny and Jessica, a girl whom he saw jumping from a bridge to die, she told him that no one will miss her. Jessica was so peaceful about death, she was happy or at least not as terrified to die, she was nothing, meant nothing to anyone. Jessica and the death of Maggie led Vincent to think of insignificant he was, it made him more conscious of his existence, and at last made him realize that he was holding on for someone to live, he depended his own life on one person and that person is dead.

Vincent’s hobby, maybe only hobby other than jogging, is going to an animals shelter. This is actually where Kelley York beautifully put the sophistication needed to make the reader understand the hidden thoughts the characters don’t utter. For example, this is how Vincent explains why he is obsessed about these animals:

“It’s been kind of therapeutic, actually. Seeing the animals. Sitting in silence with something as lonely as I am and knowing they understand on this base, instinctive level that no one else does”

“I seek out the quietest, saddest-looking dog I can find. One that probably won’t be here when I come back, because no one wanting it is what got it to the shelter in the first place, and no one wanting it is what gets it brought into the back room and killed”

Vincent relates to the old weary dogs not only because they’re lonely and unwanted, but because they remind him of his experience as a foster kid, always on the move from one family to another, never settling down or developing trust with anyone. Going through such experience took away his childhood, his rights as a kid to have a stable atmosphere where he can improve his social skills.

Yet, the interesting part is where Vincent decides to join a suicide chat-room, where he will meet Casper and Adam. Suicide chatrooms are very accessible by the way, this is why Kelley York chose to address the hazards of such toxic platforms on adolescents. Chatrooms not only make you more depressed, but they will motivate you more to take your own life, it becomes more a challenge for you to take your own life to prove something within that virtual community, rather than help you confront your problems bravely.

Casper is a very mature and interesting character, I found her surprisingly mature and deep character in the book. She has cancer, and chose to take control over her life rather than wait for death. After she got diagnosed, she pushed a lot of her close friends and even boyfriend away, she didn’t want to hurt them in a way, but she’ll end up building a strong friendship with Vincent and Adam. She has a message to both of them, she told them that as long as they’re alive, they can be saved, they can be fixed because they’re just broken.

Adam is also an interesting character, very invisible, and shy. After the death of his father, his mom started to treat him as if he was invisible, he himself started to believe he was. The cutest thing about Adam is that he and Vincent texted more of The Beatles’s lyrics than actually talking.

I won’t spoil any other aspects of the characters of Adam, Vincent, and Casper, I believe these three should be discovered.

I think this quote sumps up the message of the whole book, and it shows how therapeutic it is.

“Keep fighting. You have the rest of your lives to fix what’s broken, and the “rest of your life” is only as short as you make it”