JAMIE WEIL at Books Inc. Alameda

Writer and youth mental health advocate Jamie Weil shares her powerful novel for young adults, First Break.

When your first break from home is your first break with reality … Paige Masters knows something isn’t quite right, but figures once she gets to college, life will get better. Instead, it gets worse. Desperate to quiet the voices in her head telling her to kill herself, Paige overdoses on her roommate’s sleeping meds, her ticket to the university emergency room and, from there, a 72-hour hold at an adolescent psychiatric facility that turns into months that feel like they’ll never end. Inside those cotton-candy-pink walls, Paige turns 18, and discovers that adulthood brings a whole new set of rights. When she checks herself out, she is ill-prepared for what comes next.