Words on Bathroom Walls

Written by Julia Walton

Narrated by Julia Walton, Christopher Gebauer and Robert Fass

Now a Major Motion Picture starring Charlie Plummer, AnnaSophia Robb, and Taylor Russell!

Fans of More Happy Than Not and The Perks of Being a Wallflower will cheer for Adam in this uplifting and surprisingly funny story of a boy living with schizophrenia.

When you can't trust your mind, trust your heart.

Adam is a pretty regular teen, except he's navigating high school life while living with paranoid schizophrenia. His hallucinations include a cast of characters that range from the good (beautiful Rebecca) to the bad (angry Mob Boss) to the just plain weird (polite naked guy).
An experimental drug promises to help him hide his illness from the world. When Adam meets Maya, a fiercely intelligent girl, he desperately wants to be the normal, great guy that she thinks he is. But as the miracle drug begins to fail, how long can he keep this secret from the girl of his dreams?

"Echoing the premise and structure of Flowers for Algernon, this [is a] frank and inspiring novel." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

Don't miss Just Our Luck, another stunning book by Julia Walton. Coming in 2020!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
• Release date: Jul 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984829245

Julia Walton

Julia Walton is the award-winning author of Words on Bathroom Walls, Just Our Luck, and On the Subject of Unmentionable Things. She received an MFA in creative writing from Chapman University and a BA in history from UC Irvine. Julia lives with her husband and children in Huntington Beach, California.

Reviews for Words on Bathroom Walls

[jackrabbitjam · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Hope. When it comes down to it, we all need it. Whether for love, happiness, security, and most of all, health. This book is a strong reminder that so many people who struggle with physical and mental illnesses put all their hope in a drug trial. Adam shows us that while that is the end game we all may need, it's those around us that get us there. In good ways and in bad. This story Adam tells through his journals, yes with a few jumps of faith to believe he understands it all, is just a glimpse on how those with mental illness must run the gauntlet inside their heads and from those who don't understand, or who antagonize from fear.
This is a type of story I usually stay away from because it's always told from one viewpoint and leaves so much unsaid. Here, the author has managed to let Adam understand what some are feeling, the motives for their actions and translate that into the story. It's heartbreaking, it's touching, it will make you angry, it will make you cry. In the end though, their is hope. Not for Adam, but for those who come together to heal.
I won this book in a giveaway to be fair, but if I had known how much this quick read would touch upon so much I would have bought it first.

[readingbeader · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

3.5 stars. Journal entries from a young man with schizophrenia. He is taking medication which helps, but does not stop the hallucinations.

It's good.

[ck31-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I was contemplating between 3 or 4 stars. I enjoyed the book. The sorry: A teenage boy, who is diagnosed with schizophrenia, is writing a journal for a Psychyatrist because he doesn't talk to him. So from that perspective an interesting read, but two things I didn't like.
1. This is probably what bothered me the most. I was waiting and expecting a twist or a change in storry because of the title. I was waiting for the significance of the words on bathroom walls. Btw, it is one wall only. The storry would have been good without the words on the wall. I felt that is was insignificant to the storry. I got mislead and that's why three stars only.
2. And more minor, what was the significance of the different dosages of the medication. Was there a noticeable change between the different dosage towards his behaviour? Maybe there was and I just didn't notice.

[grgenius_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

No reading updates with this one, simply a start and a finish. Curious story letting inside the life of Adam... and Rebecca... and the mobsters... and several others that pop in and out of existence at will. That's right... Adam is different in some ways but that doesn't make him any less worthy of life, love, and the chance to simply be. Seeing his struggle from the inside out was eye opening, and I simply couldn't get enough of the other character connections made throughout the Novel. Maya was a green, as was Dwight, Adam's mom, Paul, and the faceless/nameless therapist he's writing and discussing life with. My heart broke for him several times over, but perked right back up when all seemed right again with his world... or at least as right as it could be.

[lauriebrown54 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Sixteen year old Adam is starting at a new school. That means making new friends, and then there is a girl who seems interesting. His mother is pregnant by his fairly-new stepfather. Those things would be hard enough for any teen; to make things worse for Adam, he hallucinates. He has paranoid schizophrenia.

He’s on an experimental drug, and it, unlike all the others that were tried on him, is working. Oh, he still sees and hears people who aren’t really there, but this drug has enabled him to know they aren’t real, and so can go about life ignoring them. The mute woman who always seems to be with him, the naked but polite dude, the mobsters- they no longer bother him, even when they try their best.

Part of the deal with the experimental drug is that he has to attend therapy once a week. He refuses to speak to his therapist, so he writes out how his life is going. This is how the book is narrated: his letters to the doctor.

Other than the hallucinations wandering around, the first part of the book is just a normal teen going through life. But as the story goes on, Adam’s worst nightmare starts to come true: his new friends may find out he is mentally ill, broken. Is he strong enough to keep that from happening by sheer force of will?

Adam is quick witted, honest, and funny. I very much enjoyed the narrative. It’s a coming of age story, but one with much higher stakes than usual. I really liked Adam as a character, and I liked his girlfriend and best friend, too. His mother & stepfather love him and try hard, although they had no idea how to help Adam. It’s a fast read but one that made my heart ache.