Get Well Soon by Julie Halpern

Pub. Date: September 2009
Publisher: Macmillan Square Fish
Format: Paperback, 224pp
Age Range: Young Adult
ISBN: 0312581483
Anna Bloom is suffering a real bad depression and panic attacks. It gets so bad that one night she is brought by her parents to a mental hospital, without warning Anna that she is going to stay there for a while to recover. Anna is confused the first days about her new surroundings and the new other messed up teens who suddenly surround her and the rules of the institution. Anna isn't the worst case of patients there, she realizes, as she sees many other teen aged patients behaving aggressive, abusive and weird.
You see the world of Anna in the institution through the letters to her best friend back home Tracy. It gives a realistic view into the life of someone who has to stay there, during daily situations like therapy sessions, meal times, Anna's fellow patients and her crush on Justin. During her time in the mental hospital, Anna has no further contact with the outside world and only speaks to her parents on time on the phone. With improving behavior she will be upgraded to a higher level during her stay there, till she is allowed to go home again, but when will that be?
I really enjoyed reading Get Well Soon. The beginning was a bit weird but later on it got more enjoyable when you learn more about Anna and the other teens in the psychiatric institution. At certain points the novel lacked some character progression, it was sometimes a bit a repeat of what Anna was doing during the day and that got a bit more of the same after a while. But overall a very good YA novel about an original theme.