When We Collide by Emery Lord (2016)

Vivi needs a break from the life she’s built and that’s just what she gets: a move to Verona Cove for the summer. Right away, she’s in love with the town. The small-town feel, the diner, her new job, and the beach a walk away. Things couldn’t be going better and to top it off she meets Jonah Daniels, who is feeling anything but joy this summer. Within the past few months his dad passed away and his mom fell apart, leaving him and his five siblings to fend for themselves. From the moment Jonah and his younger sister walk into the pottery shop, Jonah and Vivi stick together like glue. Vivi is the type of girl Jonah’s never met before he becomes enticed with her. However, soon enough her quirks don’t seem quirky but out of hand and if Jonah wants to help her, he’s going to have to do it soon.

And, the award for The Worst Book Ever goes to… When We Collided by Emmery Lord. This book was something else and I’m kind of amazed with how this book not only got published, but has mostly positive reviews. This book was a different kind of bad from others. Usually, when I give 1 Star rating it’s because the writing was bad or the plot was unbelievable (which they both were) but I’m almost never mad at the message and ideas of the book. This novel, however, pushes really fictitious ideas on very real things that could seriously taint a reader’s point of view on things.

Something you might have not gotten from the description of the book is that When We Collided deals heavily with mental illness, or at least tries to. Right off the bat, it was obvious that the author was going to forcefully push a heroic mental illness story on the reader. It seemed that almost every character had a mental illness or a depressing story that left them picking up the pieces. Even the policeman’s family had to die in a car accident. Except for Jonah, that is. He was just so strong and manly and couldn’t possibly be upset about anything and just couldn’t get why other people couldn’t snap out of their depression.

Vivi, on the other hand, was a mess of a character and should’ve never existed. How did someone think it was a good idea to write Vivi? Vivi has bipolar disorder, and was written by someone who doesn’t have bipolar disorder (she says so in the back) but still decided to write a character from a point of view she had no idea about. Oh, and I have bipolar disorder so I’m actually writing this with some background knowledge. Emmery Lord portrays Vivi to be selfish, irrational, irresponsible, and childish, linking it all back to her having bipolar disorder.

From the start of the book, Vivi is refusing to take her medication and lies about taking it. She creates this arc that people who are bipolar aren’t responsible enough to take care of their illness and recognize when there is a problem. She is completely childish, which would’ve been fine if that was just her, but it was later linked to the fact that she had bipolar disorder. Vivi knew no boundaries, completely pushed herself on other people and got upset when things didn’t go her way.

It was obvious to me from the beginning that Emmery Lord has no idea what living with bipolar disorder. She almost made it a game called “Let’s see how unstable I can make Vivi.” Lord tried to write some kind of manic episode for Vivi but only managed to make it unbelievable and quite honestly ridiculous. For time’s sake, let’s say the manic episode was true and her backstory was real. Without a question in my mind or anyone else who knows bipolar disorder, it’s obvious Vivi has Bipolar I. Yet, she’s diagnosed with Bipolar II, just another sign that Emmery Lord didn’t do her research.

Also, let’s just add the fact the Lord decided to write a “note” in the back detailing how she knows so many people with mental illness so it was okay for her to write this book. How she “admires” us for our bravery of living and to fight through it. Because it’s so easy to do so. It was honestly so disappointing to see such ignorance toward mental illness. The note only made it worse for me.

Another issue I had, not dealing with mental illness, was the lack of consent during the sex scenes. Vivi comes to Jonah totally out-of-her-mind drunk and is all over Jonah. Instead of Jonah backing off and putting Vivi to bed like and genuine person, he has sex with her. This was borderline rape and note okay at all.

Lastly, the writing wasn’t that great. As I detailed before, Vivi is supposed to be super quirky, dressing like she came out of the 50s and having all these strange sayings. She would’ve been quirky too if Jonah didn’t have the same exact voice as her. I almost couldn’t tell them apart. They even had the same saying. Things would also weirdly pop up, be a big deal, and the disappear. For instance, all of a sudden, toward the end Vivi’s mom started calling her “chickie” like she called her that everyday.

The worst part of this book is that people are loving it. Eating it up and then creating views in their mind of what mental illness looks like that’s false. I suggest, if you want to read a real book on mental illness, check out The Weight of Zero or Lily & Dunkin.