Mental Illness Advocacy (MIA) Reading Challenge

I did a mental illness awareness reading challenge this year. I'd looked forward to it, but the blog hosting it was deleted sometime this year.  I then saw this similar challenge and decided to sign up for this one.  They said you can join any time, but I'm planning to start next year so I can finish the challenges I'm still working on for the current year. To see more details and to sign up, click here at Opinions of a Wolf.

I will try to get to 12 books.  I've been going through depression treatment, so I need to participate in this challenge.

Mental Illness Advocacy (MIA) Reading Challenge

About the Challenge:
I started the Mental Illness Advocacy (MIA) Reading Challenge in December 2010 in an effort to raise awareness, knowledge, and acceptance of mental illness.  Reading, both fiction and nonfiction, is an excellent way to broaden one’s horizons and expose one to new ideas and ways of thinking and being.  Many reading challenges already existed in the book blogging community to address racism, sexism, and homophobia, but I could not find any to address the stigma faced by those suffering from mental illness.  In spite of mental illnesses being recognized by the scientific community as diseases just like physical ones, many still think those suffering from one are at fault for their own suffering.  I hope reading and reviewing books featuring characters struggling to deal with mental illness, whether their own or another person’s, will help remove the stigma faced on a daily basis by those with a mental illness.  They already have to struggle with an illness; they shouldn’t have to face a stigma too.

Please note that this is the original MIA Reading Challenge. For the years 2010-2014 there were no other reading challenges addressing mental illness.

What books count?Any book, fiction or nonfiction, that is either about mental illness or features characters or real people with a mental illness counts for the challenge.  However, the book must not demonize people with mental illnesses.

So, for example, the movie Fatal Attraction, which features a character with Borderline Personality Disorder, would not count since she is demonized in the movie.  However, Girl Interrupted, which also features a character with Borderline Personality Disorder, would count since that character is presented as a three-dimensional person with good and bad traits.

Challenge Levels:

Acquainted–4 books
Aware–8 books
Advocate–12 books

Here is what I'll be reading:

1. Prozac Nation--Elizabeth Wurtzel
2. It's Kind of a Funny Story--Ned Vizzini
3. Room--Emma Donoghue
4. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance--Robert M. Pirsig
5. The Prince of Tides--Pat Conroy
6. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest--Ken Kesey
7. The Yellow Wall-Paper and Other Writings--Charlotte Perkins Gilman
8. Sellevision--Augusten Burroughs
9. Persepolis 2--Marjane Satrapi
10. Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo and Me--Ellen Forney
11. Hyperbole and a Half--Allie Brosh
12. Veronika Decides to Die--Paulo Coelho
13. Loud in the House of Myself--Stacy Pershall
14. The 6th Target--James Patterson
15. The Housekeeper and the Professor--Yoko Ogawa
16. Summerland--Elin Hilderbrand
17. Fly Away--Kristin Hannah
18. The Summer of the Swans--Betsy Byars
19. Looking for Alaska--John Green
20. The Bell Jar--Sylvia Plath
21. The Catcher in the Rye--J.D. Salinger
22. All the Lovely Bad Ones--Mary Downing Hahn
23. Ghost Boy--Martin Pistorius
24. Think of a Number--John Verdon
25. The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer--Michelle Hodkin
26. I Was Here--Gayle Forman
27. Leave Me--Gayle Forman
28. In the Still of the Night--Ann Rule
29. Another Brooklyn--Jacqueline Woodson
30. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time--Mark Haddon

Challenge completed on December 1