Waiting for Fitz by Spencer Hyde

3*


Addie, whose OCD has gotten so severe that it takes her 3 hours to get ready for school, must postpone her senior year when she is admitted to an inpatient adolescent psych ward. Her fellow patients include Didi who suffers from Tourette’s and pathological lying, Leah who is depressed after brain tumor surgery, Wolf who is in search of his “horse” and whose diagnosis isn’t revealed, Junior who has anger issues and seizures, and Fitz who has spent the last two years at the hospital for schizophrenia (or, more accurately, multiple personality disorder). Their days are full of both individual and group therapy, exercise, eating meals, playing Boggle, and watching movies. During the times they have to socialize, Addie and Fitz form a strong connection, bonding over literature and punny jokes. The humor is the coping mechanism they use to keep their illnesses from totally overwhelming them. When Fitz asks Addie to break out with him and travel to San Juan Island so he can make amends for the tragedy that landed him in the psych ward, she agrees and even smuggles in money she’s saved in a book by asking her mother to bring her more reading material. Unfortunately, once outside the safe confines of the hospital and without their proper medication, their walls come down and circumstances spiral out of control. The big question posed to Addie by one of her teachers, which is a thread running through much of the book, is what the characters in Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” were waiting for. Will either Fitz or Addie find the answer after their ill-advised trip?


Author Hyde spent three of his high school years at Johns Hopkins for severe OCD like Addie’s, and many of the other characters are based on his fellow patients. The authenticity he brings to his writing as a result of his own experiences helps create a vivid and heart-breaking story, but also highlights the humor and humanity found in adolescent psych wards. In this respect, the book would be a great vehicle for bibliotherapy. Unfortunately, Hyde uses literary references from authors generally studied at the college level to sculpt most of the conversation between Fitz and Addie. Although liberally sprinkled with humor, the dialogue is ultimately too cerebral and theoretical for most teenagers, especially Fitz who doesn’t seem to have had much proper schooling and has very limited resources with no internet access and no library at his disposal. Unfortunately, most adolescents wouldn’t have the patience to sift through the dialogue to finish the book. So, although deserving of a large audience, it will be hard-pressed to find one.


I received a complimentary copy of this book from Shadow Mountain Publishing through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.