Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

The whole book is written as if Zach is talking to someone, so it feels less like a narration, and more like he is recounting events that have already taken place, even though, for the most part, he is talking about the present. I found Last Night I Sang to the Monster very difficult to get into. But if he is to heal, get better, and get out this place, remember he must. All he knows is that his repressed memories must be something awful, and he absolutely doesn't want to remember. He's been there for three weeks, and knows he was in hospital before that, but he doesn't know why he was in hospital, and he doesn't remember going to the facility. He is in a facility for those with various mental illnesses, and is in the group with the addicts for his alcoholism. Zach is an 18-year-old biracial boy - half-Latino, half-white American - who is very smart, very talented, but very troubled. Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Benjamin Alire Sáenz is an absolutely heartbreaking novel, but one with such a beautiful, uplifting ending. Trigger Warning: This book features sexual assault, domestic violence, discussion of the experience of child abuse, male rape, and blackmail for sex, discussion of the experience of racism with use of the n-word. Apparently he doesn't like me very much either. He takes out his pen and starts writing on our blank hearts. See, on some people's hearts he writes Happy and on some people's hearts he writes Sad and on some people's hearts he writes Crazy on some people's hearts he writes Genius and on some people's hearts he writes Angry and on some people's hearts he writes Winner and on some people's hearts he writes Loser. I have it in my head that when we're born, God writes things down on our hearts. Remembering sucks and being alive - well, what's up with that? He's also an alcoholic and in rehab instead of high school, but he doesn't remember how he got there. Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Benjamin Alire Sáenz (bought) - Zach is eighteen.