What separates revenge from redemption, hope from hopelessness, or even madness from reality? These questions are what blur the line in Schizo by Nic Sheff.

Miles Cole is a teenager in San Francisco struggling with intense schizophrenia as well as high school life. He feels guilty because two years prior – the day of his first schizophrenic episode – Teddy, his younger brother, went missing. He was believed to have drowned at the beach, but a witness claims to have seen him being taken by a shady man. Still wracked with guilt, Miles tries to find a way to get his brother back and reunite his family again. Miles is both an optimistic and pessimistic character; he can have a mean-spirited moment here and there, but he deeply cares for his friends and family, which makes the reader want him to succeed and save Teddy.

The writing in this book is a pristine example of how complex and tortured a mind with mental illness can be. I could sometimes barely tell if what Miles saw was real or if it was a schizophrenic hallucination. The crows Miles sees throughout the novel, and many more of his delusions and dreams, all lead the way to a hopeful yet uncertain climax that made my fingers tremble at each turn of the page.

Written with likable and unlikeable characters, well paced, and effectively crafted with unique diction and syntax, Schizo will show the reader what it is like not to be able to tell delusion from reality.