I like books that are a little twisted. The more grounded in reality a book is and the more twists is throws, the more it makes me question character motives and desires, the more I find myself enjoying the book. Janet Ruth Young’s forthcoming The Babysitter Murders was strange, haunting and one of those reads that will be sticking with me for a long, long time. In the midst of creating a plot rife with horror, Young offers us a sympathetic and relatable main character who wants nothing more than help for struggling with a severe mental disorder. Moreover, this book was even a little funny.

Dani is a babysitter, and she loves the little boy for whom she’s in charge. It’d been a dream for her to babysit, and she lucked out with babysitting Alex. The book opens with something innocuous: the television news reporting on a murder that’d taken place. Dani, wanting to protect Alex, takes him out of the room and tries to wipe the images of the dead child’s body being removed from the scene of the crime out of her mental image.

But she can’t. In fact, this scene keeps replaying in her mind. Dani’s fixated on this idea, and she begins to wonder if maybe she could commit a murder so vicious. It’s not that she wants to, it’s that she would never want to do something so gruesome. But the thoughts won’t escape her head, and every time she sees Alex, she has to stop thinking about what it would be like to kill him. She goes through routines of making sure things like the sharp knives are hidden, that any potential weapons are out of her reach and line of vision.

Dani can’t handle the thoughts anymore. She wants to be able to function normally, to not think about killing this child she adores so much. And she reaches out — she tells Alex’s mother about these thoughts in an effort to get some help and in an effort to clear her mind. Everyone has strange thoughts, and Dani wants to get it out there.

The problem comes, of course, in that Alex’s mother is not okay with hearing Dani has had thoughts of killing her son. Even though Dani’s admitted to never doing it and not wanting to do it, Alex’s mother doesn’t do Dani any favors; instead, his mother calls the police to come “take care” of this girl who wants to kill her son. She’s sent to the police, where she’s questioned, then she’s sent home, where her life gets only harder, not easier, when she begins seeing a therapist for these thoughts. Dani’s got obsessive compulsive disorder, with an emphasis on the obsessive, rather than compulsive, aspects, and the support structure she desperately needs to overcome her thoughts just doesn’t exist.

In the effort to not spoil the story, I won’t explain why the ending is one of the most enjoyable I’ve read in a while. But it was — Dani will get her say in the matter of her life, even if it may land her in more, rather than less, trouble down the road.

The Babysitter Murders was one of the most terrifying (yet funny) books I’ve read in a while. Young manages to take an exceptionally scary topic and idea and weave just enough humor within it to temper the heavy issues. The book is fast paced, and it’s one I read nearly in one sitting because I was eager to learn what would happen to Dani: would she ever recover? Would she put these obsessive, unhealthy thoughts into action? Would she ever get the help she desperately needs?

Dani was an exceptionally well written and sympathetic character. We’re given insight into her thought process and her mind throughout the story, and even though it is skewed from normal thinking, we actually understand everything she’s going through. Everyone gets fixated on thoughts, so we relate; where we realize there’s a problem with Dani’s thinking is that she cannot let it go, and she goes through the motions to ensure she doesn’t accidentally follow through in some of her thoughts. In one scene, she’s in music rehearsal, thinking about doing something to her instructor; she becomes so obsessed with whether she’s actually performed the act she’s been thinking about that she has to step back and ask her friend if she’s just done something weird or out of the ordinary (she hasn’t). It takes what most of us experience on a daily basis and amplifies it. For me as a reader, the scariest things are those I understand and relate to, not those that are so outlandish I could never connect with — but here, I connected with Dani because I understand completely these strange, skewed thoughts. The difference being, of course, I can stop mine while she cannot.

The biggest thing that stood out to me in the book was how sympathetic Dani was as a character. She’s the one who reaches out for help again and again, even though she’s treated poorly in the process. Rather than allow herself to do something that could land her in huge trouble and ruin the lives of others, she reaches out to an adult she trusts for help. The problem, of course, is that the adult betrays her trust and immediately considers her a criminal, rather than someone with a true mental disorder. It’s not just in this instance, though, that Dani becomes a target. After she’s been taken away from Alex’s home by police, her arrest hits the newspapers; the police reports list taking an under age girl into custody for a “threat” to kill a small child. Though her name is never listed as the girl (since she is underage), it takes little more than some Googling for people in town to figure out who the person is, and she becomes a target for hatred in her community. Even the police write her off as a rich kid who needed a hobby, rather than a very mentally ill teen who needed help. As readers, we know what a good person she is, but there is no one in this story who is on her side. Dani cares so deeply about the people in her life, yet no one wants to reach out and show her the same sort of love. It’s painful to read because we understand her and because we want the people around her to get it, too.

Onto the humor of the story — perhaps funny isn’t the word many people would use. Perhaps the reason this book resonated as a bit humorous to me was because it’s uncomfortable, and Young knows this. To make it less a horror read, she offers just enough small details and interactions between characters that are absurd, and these absurdities undercut the seriousness of the greater plot and scenes. It’s not played as a trick or as a slight of hand, but rather as a way to reground the story in reality. Because even in the midst of exploring a severe mental illness, there is still a lot of humor in life and in character, so it’s critical these moments are highlighted. Both the readers and the characters deserve these moments to breathe and recollect. I’ll be honest in saying I don’t know if it’s a universal humor nor that everyone will find the funny in the book, but for me as a reader, it was spot on. It was a bit of an uncomfortable and unsettling kind of funny that I appreciate greatly and find is hard to nail. Young, however, succeeds here.

As I mentioned earlier, though, this book ends with a bang. I cheered for Dani throughout the story, and I wanted her to get better and find a way to recover and earn respect again in her community. In the last chapter, I think she achieves this, and she does it in a manner that shouldn’t have caused me to cheer (but it did). Although this story is focused on Dani’s OCD, it’s also a story about relationships and how tricky they can be to navigate and understand; the end, I think, tied up the loose ends about what relationships meant to someone with such disordered thinking.

This book reminded me a lot of Tom Perrotta’s Little Children, though Young’s target readership is young adults. The books both look at the effects of being an outsider within a community, and both bring up the idea of vigilante justice. Dani becomes a target of violence and hatred out of misunderstanding and out of prejudice, much like the recovered pedophile does in Perrotta’s story.

The Babysitter Murders is one to hand off to fans of psychological thrillers, though there’s less emphasis on the thriller aspect and more on the psychological. It’s a contemporary story about mental illness, and it’s one that won’t be for every reader — it can get a little visual in discussing murder and justice. It’s suited to its age group, and I think it’s easily one of those books that teens who prefer adult contemporary titles will find enjoyable (and it may even change their mind about any prejudices they may have about ya books). I could see fans of books like Stolen (Christopher) and Forbidden (Suzuma) enjoying this one quite a bit, as well, as it tackles a heavy issue while developing a fantastically sympathetic lead character. This is a book that will have easy crossover appeal to adult readers, as well, especially those who like books in the same vein as Tom Perrotta.

Even though it’s a heavy book, it is balanced with the right amount of humor, too, making it one of those books that perfectly toys with the reader’s mind and emotions.

Galley received from the publisher. The Babysitter Murders will be published July 26.

I’ll be the first to admit to having a hard, hard time reading Amy Reed’s sophomore release, Clean. If you’ll remember, I was quite a fan of her debut novel, Beautiful, and I knew ahead of time that Clean was going to tackle the idea of drug addition within the setting of a treatment facility. It wasn’t going to be an easy nor a fun read, but I didn’t quite expect to have such a challenge reading it.

The thing is, that’s sort of the entire point of the story, and it’s why I think this is one of the strongest written books I’ve read in a while.

Clean is told through five voices: Kelly, the main voice, is a girl who is angry. She’s on suicide watch and has no privacy in this facility whatsoever; we know she’s got something going on in her family, but she doesn’t put it all out there. It’s a slow reveal.

The story opens with Kelly getting a new roommate, Olivia, a girl who forever operates on the fringes of the small, tight group of friends with whom Kelly associates with inside the facility. Olivia is obsessed with dissociating herself from her addiction and from other people, and she finds her solace in constantly engaging in school work (even though it’s forbidden outside study hours). Then there’s Eva: a girl with a bit of privilege and a girl who has struggled with feeling like she doesn’t belong in her own family.

Then there’s the boys: Christopher is paranoid. We’re dropped into this immediately, as he is constantly worried everyone is judging him in this facility. And finally, Jason. Jason’s out to prove something, whether to himself or to an imaginary following, and he’ll do something that rattles both himself and Kelly. Something that’ll prove how power(less) he really is.

Clean, as you might imagine, is not a plot-driven story; instead, it’s an intensely character-driven novel that packs a punch in each page. All five of the characters are well defined, but not immediately.

When I dove into the book, I had a hard time keeping the five voices straight. They all sounded almost the same to me, like five spokes on the same wheel. But this is done purposefully. As readers, we come to the story with certain preconceived notions of drug addicts, and Reed plays into this quite well at the exposition. The guys all sounded the same, and all of the girls sounded exactly the same. They’re all angry and paranoid and completely irritated that they’ve arrived in this facility. They’re skeptical of the idea they have problems, but perhaps they’re more skeptical that anything will ever change for them. It’s almost stereotypical because of how much it plays into the reader’s expectations.

But this is why it’s so brilliantly set up.

After being introduced to these characters through their short vignettes, we begin to unravel who these individuals are through their group therapy sessions, through their intensely personal essays of addiction, and through the individual stories they tell. Their voices become crystal clear, defined, and unique. We begin to understand why each of these people fell into a life of drugs and booze, and we begin to truly sympathize with the crummy situations that put them there. More brilliant, though, is how relatable these characters are: none of them has had all that tragic a life. None of them came from a background of drugs and booze and abuse. They’ve come from backgrounds that teens live every day, which is perhaps why this book was so downright scary to read. Kelly, for example, took drugs up as a way to keep herself amused, as a way to feel something. Her sisters, twins, were both born with birth defects that caused her parents to divert attention she may have gotten to them and their needs; but more than that, she has never had the chance to connect with her sisters in the way she so desperately wished to. Drugs were her conduit to feeling.

And Olivia, who comes to be the sort of outcast of the group, turns out to be the real heart breaker in the story. I think of all the characters, I was most engaged in her story because she was such a tough nut to crack, and yet, I knew there was something stirring inside her that would shift the entire dynamic of this group. To say the ending of the book was fitting and moving would be an understatement.

This book could easily be described as The Breakfast Club set in rehab, and it is. Even the set up of the book follows the execution of the movie, and it’s done so in a manner that anyone who has seen the movie can appreciate on one level and those who haven’t seen the movie can still completely understand what’s going on.

Reed’s writing, much like her writing in Beautiful, is unflinching and raw. It’s not easy to read, and knowing that these teens have hit such a rock bottom that they’re together in a residential rehab facility makes it understandable why this book is going to be uncomfortable. More than once, as soon as I got into the story, I had to back myself out. I had to distance myself from these characters because the pain at times was almost too much to take. But this exactly why this book is so important: it gives insight into the diverse stories that make up a habit that’s so easy to categorize as something that only “losers” and “low lifes” can fall into. These teens are real, and their struggles are those that emerge not only in life as we know it, but also in the pages of the young adult books that we read. I think, though, this need to distance from the text is a good thing and a necessary thing. The impact this book has is one that needs to be absorbed, rather than breezed through. Clean might be one of the strongest written books I’ve read in a long, long time, and it’s one that made me shed a tear — not from the story, necessarily, but from the powerful writing itself. This is an author to keep an eye on.

Pass Clean off to those who loved Reed’s first book, Beautiful, as well as fans of Ellen Hopkins, Courtney Summers, and other authors who don’t shy away from writing honest stories about tough subjects. Obviously, this isn’t a book for your younger readers, nor is it a go-to for all contemporary fans. I’d easily hand this one off to adults, too, both for the story aspect and for the ability Reed has in defining how addiction spans background, class, and more.

eGalley received from publisher, but then I preordered my own copy. I ended up buying this one as an ebook, but I’d be extremely curious to know whether some of the formatting is better fit for print. If anyone wants to weigh in, I’d love to hear. Clean comes out July 19.