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    Made You Up
    Made You Up
    Made You Up
    Audiobook9 hours

    Made You Up

    Written by Francesca Zappia

    Narrated by Amanda Ronconi

    4/5

    ()

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    About this audiobook

    Reality, it turns out, is often not what you perceive it to be-sometimes, there really is someone out to get you. For fans of Silver Linings Playbook and Liar, this thought-provoking debut tells the story of Alex, a high school senior-and the ultimate unreliable narrator-unable to tell the difference between real life and delusion.

    Alex fights a daily battle to figure out what is real and what is not. Armed with a take-no-prisoners attitude, her camera, a Magic 8 Ball, and her only ally (her little sister), Alex wages a war against her schizophrenia, determined to stay sane long enough to get into college. She's pretty optimistic about her chances until she runs into Miles. Didn't she imagine him?

    Before she knows it, Alex is making friends, going to parties, falling in love, and experiencing all the usual rites of passage for teenagers. But Alex is used to being crazy. She's not prepared for normal.

    Can she trust herself? Can we trust her?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJun 6, 2017
    ISBN9781541475786
    Author

    Francesca Zappia

    Francesca Zappia lives in central Indiana. When she is not writing, she’s drawing her characters, reading, or playing video games. She is also the author of Made You Up and Eliza Mirk’s favorite, The Children of Hypnos, a biweekly serial novel posted on Tumblr and Wattpad. She also blogs about writing at francescazappia.com

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    Reviews for Made You Up

    4/5

    164 ratings21 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      The simplicity within the complexity of everything that happened.
    • 3/5
      Keeping in mind this is a YA book. It was okay.
    • 4/5
      Definitely a slow book. Took me a while to get into and threw the whole thing. The ending I thought was a little confusing. I'm not one to like love stories, but I did really love Miles and her loves story. How cute! There is a huge twist that makes your eyes well up. And it is very interesting to read about the schizophrenia aspect. To see the world threw her eyes, over all a good book.
    • 4/5
      Only issue is the last word of each chapter gets cut off. Love the story
    • 5/5
      Absolutely amazing. I looked forward to this book every time I got in my car. Wow. Alex. Miles. Tucker. These characters were perfect. This story line was great. I give this 5 stars because I was entertained and couldn’t wait to see what happened next. I can see this as a movie. I’d never heard of this but wow, wow wow. GREAT JOB to the author
    • 4/5
      A fine book but painful to read. It makes you wonder why a mental illness carries such a stigma compared to a physical disease like cancer. Even though knowing that I was reading an unreliable narrator I was still fairly shocked to learn that Charlie was a hallucination. Also fairly shocked that her doctors and therapist could let her continue to delude herself for years.
    • 4/5
      What an amazing book! Made You Up is well written taking the difficult subject of mental illness and making it accessible to a young audience by weaving it into the life of a high school student trying to find her way in a new school. Alex suffers through the usual angst associated with high school, but wondering all the while how much of her new life is real and how much is imagined. If you read this story, have a few tissues ready because it will grab your emotions and not let go until the very end. The climax was a little hard to follow, not knowing how much was really happening in the story and how much Alex was imagining, but without a doubt, this story is well worth reading.
    • 5/5
      I'm big into books that deal with mental illnesses. When I heard about Made You Up by Francesca Zappia, I knew it was a book that was right up my alley. I was not left feeling disappointed.The plot and world building felt very realistic although I'm not Schizophrenic nor do I know anyone who is. I could not tell what was real and what was a delusion by Alex. Kudos to Zappia for giving us a brief glimpse into how a Schizophrenic would feel. I kept second guessing myself throughout Made You Up. Sometimes it would be obvious that Alex was hallucinating, but there were many times everything felt too real to be a hallucination. I would be wrong, and something realistic would be a hallucination. As you can imagine, there were many plot twists throughout this book. There was one major plot twist which I had predicted towards the beginning which turned out to be true thanks to subtle hints the author would throw in, so be sure to be attention to every word on the page to try to grasp what is Alex's reality and what is not. I did feel like the main storyline of Made You Up was whether or not Miles, the boy Alex met briefly when she was a young child, was actually real or not since she meets him again her senior year of high school. It was fun trying to guess if Miles was real or not and if he was the same boy Alex met as a child.All of the characters in Made You Up had a lot of depth to them. They were all easy for me to imagine as real people instead of characters in a book. I enjoyed reading about Alex and her thought process and what all she had to go through all the time due to her Schizophrenia. Alex, like all the characters in this book, was a very likable character. Miles was interesting. I didn't really know what to make of him throughout the book (mainly because I was trying to figure out if he was real or imaginary). I did enjoy him, and I was definitely intrigued by his back story. It was great learning about him. I loved little Charlie and how much she seemed to love her big sister, Alex. Alex loved Charlie so much as well, and I loved reading about the tight sisterly bond between them. Trigger warnings for Made You Up include some profanity, some violence, death, minor gore, some child abuse, mental illness, a minor sexual situation, bullying, references to Nazis, attempted murder, and death.All in all, Made You Up is a very interesting read with a fantastic plot and well developed characters. It's obvious the author did her homework before writing this novel. I would definitely recommend Made You Up by Francesca Zappia to those aged 16+ who are seeking a book full of twists and turns. Just be warned that this book will have you second guessing almost everything (which isn't a bad thing).
    • 4/5
      Unreliable narrator, insight into schizophrenia, sort of, I think the diagnosis is too early. And yet, I was totally drawn into this story. I'll need to buy it for my library, as I had to borrow it to read it.
    • 1/5
      I didn't realize it was possible to be so inaccurate and still get published. I don't know a lot about psychology but I just finished a semester class that apparently taught me way more than this author bothered to learn. So glad I got this from the library instead of paying for it because that is three hours of my life I'm never going to get back. Seriously, read at your own risk and know that this is not how schizophrenia actually works. If you need a detailed explanation, the review by @Clementine is very thorough and accurate, going through all of the horrible subplots and inconsistencies throughout the book. I can't give this a 0-star but please know that this book deserves nothing more.
    • 5/5
      Previous to this book I had read Zappia’s book “Eliza and Her Monsters” and loved that book. I was excited to read another book by her. This is a very unique and well done book about a teen who suffers from schizophrenia with paranoid delusions. I enjoyed it overall but thought the ending was too vague.Alex is trying to navigate a new school and unravel some mysteries at the new school while not knowing what is real and what is imaginary. Her mom wants to commit her to an asylum but Alex is determined to make it on her own. However, when her secret gets out she finds out who her true friends are.This was a funny, touching and intriguing story. I probably would have given it 5 stars but the ending felt very unfinished to me. I just felt like this book left me with too many questions and not enough answers. Anyone who like closure in their books will be very frustrated with this story.Overall I liked this book and thought it was unique and engaging. I was frustrated with the vague ending though; it basically leaves the reader to decide on their own what really happened to the characters in this story. I would recommend if you are looking for a quirky YA contemporary fiction book with mystery and romance and of course some discussion around mental illness.
    • 4/5
      There aren't many teen novels that deal with mental illness in a positive, educational way which makes this book even more important. The book centers around Alex, a high school senior suffering from schizophrenia. Having been kicked out of her last school for defacing the gym she is sent to a new high school and as part of her punishment she has to join an after school athletic club. Alex finds herself making friends but more often than not she's not always sure what is real and what is a figment of her imagination. Are these friendships real or are they fake? Miles, the head of the club soon becomes one of her fixations. Does he really have a German accent? Why do people call him a Nazi? Can she trust him? A hopeful, honest read about mental illness and the power of friendship.
    • 4/5
      Alex has paranoid schizophrenia, and as she gets used to life in her new high school, she must constantly question what’s real and what’s not. The plot of her story, especially at the end, felt a little far-fetched, but overall, I really enjoyed the friendships, romance, and bits of normalcy Alex finds.
    • 5/5
      I was immediately drawn to this book by the cover. It is GORGEOUS! Even the back cover is awesome! The story sounded so interesting but I was a little nervous because I had very recently read two other books involving schizophrenia - one I liked, one not so much. I loved this book! I devoured this book! I loved the main character, Alex, and her new friends at her new school. Especially Miles. There was some comedy, drama and heartache. This book is a total package. The only issue I had while reading were a couple of plot points didn't seem to really line up. I felt like I missed something but when I went back to look, couldn't find it. It only happened once or twice and it really didn't take away from anything so it was not a big deal. Overall I just really loved this book and will definitely be rereading it and recommending it.
    • 4/5
      What an amazing book! Made You Up is well written taking the difficult subject of mental illness and making it accessible to a young audience by weaving it into the life of a high school student trying to find her way in a new school. Alex suffers through the usual angst associated with high school, but wondering all the while how much of her new life is real and how much is imagined. If you read this story, have a few tissues ready because it will grab your emotions and not let go until the very end. The climax was a little hard to follow, not knowing how much was really happening in the story and how much Alex was imagining, but without a doubt, this story is well worth reading.
    • 5/5
      I couldn't put this book down. It has been on my to read pile for over a year. I love the cover and it matches the book perfectly. Mental illness is a difficult subject but I appreciate that the author tackled the subject and explored the life of a teenage female with paranoia schizophrenia. The challenge of just wanting to be normal and not live a life defined by medications and therapy was approached with laughter, wit and strong will. I loved the relationship between the two main characters and the various life challenges they both faced like domestic violence and poverty. Usually I stay away from books that address heavy issues but this one was so light and the characters were so lovable that I couldn't resist. It was a pleasure to read. However, the ending did suck since I felt the author should have allowed the main characters to triumph but it doesn't ruin the story. Highly recommend
    • 2/5
      This book should have been a winner. I love unreliable narrators and am fascinated with mental illnesses, but "Made You Up" didn't do it for me. It started well, but somewhere along the way, too many side stories were introduced which detracted from the main plot. I liked Miles - he was not the usual YA boyfriend but I couldn't connect with the other characters. Also, having a close relative with schizophrenia, I don't think the author gave a realistic insight into what it is like living with this condition. Overall, meh!
    • 5/5
      I loved everything about this book. It's surprising to see that this is Zappia's first novel because the story and characters are so well written and dynamic.

      Imagine never knowing what is real and what is a figment of your imagination. For Alex, a schizophrenic teenager, this is everyday life. She longs to have a "normal" teenage life without her paranoia and hallucinations taking over, but high school seems determined to make that impossible. With friends like Miles and Tucker, she navigates her way through the trenches of high school where a different kind of crazy reigns.

      I did not expect to feel such emotion because of this book. Alex's struggle determining what is real and what isn't is portrayed in a way that has your heart hurting for her. To be a victim of your own brain, to never know what you can trust, and to constantly have to hide a part of you that consumes you- these are things she had to deal with all the while trying to embrace and survive high school.

      Alex's and Miles' friendship was a highlight of the book. He accepts her regardless of her illness and I love that he doesn't try to change her, nor is she miraculously healed by the love of a boy. Instead, he challenges her and later gives her someone to lean on while also treating her as if her mental disorder doesn't define her (which it doesn't!). In turn, she gives him a friendship, then love, that has largely been missing from his life. She as essential to him as he is to her.

      The secondary characters are just as developed. It is a well rounded cast that includes the popular kids, the bullies, and the true friends one can find in high school. On top of that, Alex's family (and even Miles') add depth to their character, and also bring in the family perspective of living with someone with a mental disorder.

      So often I am angered or sadden by the portrayal of mental illness in books. But Zappia does a wonderful job here depicting the truth and difficulties of schizophrenia while not letting it be the only defining factor of Alex. She is so much more than her disease and I think that shows through wonderfully in Made You Up.
    • 4/5
      I wanted to read Made You Up because I deal with mental health issues myself, and I love books that handle it well, and give readers a view into a world view and problems that they might not otherwise experience or understand. I don't deal with schizophrenia personally, but I have other issues, and can relate in some ways, but also have a lot to learn myself. Alex is an easy character to like. The way that she describes the world is so real, but that's the thing for her, sometimes she has a hard time distinguishing what is real and what is a delusion. I can't help but feel for her, especially as she is describing her experience with doctors and finding the right medicines. It can be such a challenge to find a doctor that you trust, and then finding the right meds, ones that don't have huge side effects, and actually help more than hurt is a journey and experience all on its own. I think that it stays pretty realistic to what could easily be a real life medical experience. Having an unreliable narrator is always an experience but this one surprised me more than most. There were certain aspects that I never even imagined could be a delusion but it was and it threaded throughout the whole book. There was also a scene that I would've bet my bottom dollar was a delusion that turned out to be real life. So it was surprising and it made me feel even more deeply for her because her lines of reality and hallucination are always so blurred. I enjoyed the relationships that she formed in this one. They were complex and unique. Miles is a trouble maker, and he pulls some pranks on her and she dishes it right back out, earning her a spot in his closed off friendship bubble. They really complemented each other, and he wasn't easy to shake, and he ended up being a rock for her. He had his own back story that was fascinating as well as reasons to be more accepting of Alex and understanding of her illness. The other secondary characters were well done too. There were some absolute jerks, and some others who also liked Alex regardless of her problems. She had forced community service with a club that helped with the snack bar, and setting up and breaking down equipment for after school sports. They were an eclectic bunch and it was interesting seeing their reactions. The whole side story with presumed cheerleading mean girl was an interesting touch as well as the whole fascination of the principal with the scoreboard. It fell on a girl and killed her, and since their principal has been obsessed with it. It adds another dimension to the story, but at times it seemed a bit forced, but still a decent enough mystery and yet another place where we aren't sure where the line of Alex's perceptions are spot on or if she is paranoid. There was a romance in this one, and it was sweet enough. I like that it began as friendship, and that always stayed a priority instead of head over heels, nothing else matters like it can be with teens at times. I did enjoy how they ended the story. Alex had to accept a lot about herself and her disease, but I was proud of her determination and her strength. Bottom Line: Look at a teen dealing with schizophrenia, and her getting past that to make friends and even try her hand at romance.
    • 5/5
      Review courtesy of Dark Faerie TalesQuick & Dirty: What a fantastically amazing read! This story of a schizophrenic girl struggling with reality is not one to be missed.Opening Sentence: Sometimes I think people take reality for granted.The Review:Made You Up is officially one of my favourite reads from 2015. Call me morbid but I’ve read more books about mental illnesses in the past five months than I probably have in my entire life. Made You Up tops that list.Alex is schizophrenic and incredibly paranoid. She performs a perimeter check wherever she goes, searches for poison in the food her mother feeds her and takes photographs of everything to help distinguish between reality and her hallucinations. I sympathised with her because although she’s trying to take control of her life, her biggest fear is students from her new school discovering her illness and bullying her. That, and being sent to the mental asylum.Schizophrenia isn’t supposed to manifest until a person’s late teens, at the earliest, but I’d gotten a shot of it at just seven years old. I was diagnosed at thirteen. Paranoid got tacked on about a year later, after I verbally attacked a librarian for trying to hand me propaganda pamphlets for an underground communist force operating out of the basement of the public library. (She’d always been a very suspect type of librarian – I refuse to believe donning rubber gloves to handle books is a normal and accepted practice, and I don’t care what anyone says.)I adored Miles because he’s so different from the standard book boyfriend. Miles is a genius but everyone’s terrified of him for one reason or another. No one really knows him, all they know is that he does odd jobs for money, be that stealing someone’s beloved dog or breaking into a house and playing a prank. He distances himself from everyone and is ultimately the Moody guy no one dares approach for fear of angering him.“Why do you hate him so much?” I asked Tucker.“I don’t know if ‘hate’ is the right word,” he replied. “’Am afraid of him,’ ‘wish he’d stop staring,’ and ‘think he’s a lunatic’ are more accurate.”“Afraid of him?”“The whole school is.”“Why?”“Because it’s impossible to know what’s going on in his head.” Tucker looked back to me. “Have you ever seen a person completely change? Like, completely completely? So much that they don’t even have the same facial expressions they used to? That’s what happened to him.”When Alex arrives at school, for a minute she thinks Miles is the boy she met as a little girl when she tried to free the lobsters. But, he can’t be the same kind boy with blue eyes because her family forced her to believe that the lobster incident was one of her hallucinations. Not to mention, this older blue-eyed boy is cold, mean and plays horrible pranks on Alex. Not one to cower away, Alex retaliates with her version of revenge and I loved the argumentative banter between the two.What I loved most is that the story isn’t just about Alex and her illness, it’s also about Miles and his struggles at home. They complemented each other perfectly and I thought their relationship was beyond cute. Neither is perfect but they make the other better, and I loved that aspect of their romance. Plus they’re both the ultimate historian nerds, which made me chuckle.This is a beautifully written, touching read with plenty of humour, I highly suggest you read it immediately! (Or as soon as you can)Notable Scene:“Are you real?” I asked.“Yes, I am,” he said resolutely. He pressed my hand harder to his chest. His heart beat like a drum.“I am real. This”-he put his other hand over the first-“is real. You see me interacting with other people all day long, don’t you? I talk to people; I affect things in the world. I cause things to happen. I am real.”“But-but what if this whole place”-I had to suck in air again-“what if everything is inside my head? East Shoal and Scarlet and this bridge and you-what if you’re not real because nothing is real?”“If nothing’s real, then what does it matter?” he said. “You live her. Doesn’t that make it real enough?”FTC Advisory: Greenwillow/HarperTeen provided me with a copy of Made You Up. No goody bags, sponsorships, “material connections,” or bribes were exchanged for my review.
    • 5/5
      Alex (named after Alexander the Great) is a senior starting at a new school, East Shoal High School. After writing “Communist” on the floor of her old high school’s gym in red paint it was time to move on. The problem with Alex is that she doesn’t necessarily know what is real and what is imaginary.For instance, she remembers when she was seven that she let the lobsters out of the tank at the local supermarket. She also remembers an accomplice, a blue-eyed boy her age who held her up to the tank. However, when her mother caught up to her, the accomplice was gone. Was it a figment of her imagination or reality?Imagine Alex’s concern when, on her first day of senior year, she sees someone who is the spitting image of her accomplice, just ten years older. The same intense blue eyes.Alex is forced to do community service for the prior year’s infraction. This entails working in the East Shoal Recreational Athletics Support Club, getting the gym ready for after school sports, directly with Mr. Blue Eyes (Miles)…who, by the way, is not meeting her idealized vision.In Made You Up, Francesca Zappia makes it quite clear that Alex hallucinates. However, she also makes it quite clear that the “normal kids” are equally dysfunctional in their own unique ways. Everyone has something to hide including Miles, Alex and her parents, students and teachers. I’ll be quite honest…there were times that I didn’t know what was real and what was imaginary.I had a friend in high school who thought that life is inside a person’s head. In other words, nothing else existed. A person’s entire life was in his imagination; it’s just you living inside your head. Everything that happens, you imagine. All your friends, you imagine. Made You Up feels like it is playing out that scenario…everything that happens is in Alex’s imagination. Scary thought, huh?The plot is a little (or maybe a lot) off kilter…not believable. But I enjoyed the book because of the characters. Alex, Miles and the entire after school club are good characters. And the bad characters are truly bad.Made You Up is an interesting spin on schizophrenia. Are you really reading it or are you imagining that you’re reading it?