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A review by mayelaam
What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen by Kate Fagan
5.0
"Notice how close perfection is to despair."
I have some trouble with Goodreads' Star-rating method. Five is "it was amazing." I'm not sure I'd call What Made Maddy Run "amazing," what I would call it is: important. Vital even. Whether you're still a teenager, a parent of one, or neither. Because its subject matter applies to all of us: the many compounding factors that could lead any person down a path of depression, isolation, and culminate in a tragic ending.
What Fagan describes in this book, using Madison Holleran's suicide and Fagan's own struggles with mental health as examples, is what you could call a perfect storm. An uber-conscious, achingly perfectionist young woman used to excelling at everything she did, used to her peers' acclaim and her friends' support, used to controlling the narrative, and her life, to the point where everyone thought she had "everything", arrives at a new, more competitive environment where her drive to excel, her need for acclaim ends up being squashed by the reality that she's not so special after all and then keeps all her feelings, her depression, to herself to avoid breaking that mirage of perfection.
It was painful to read through Madison's letters to friends, text messages, conversations in which even when she talked about quitting the track team, the reason why she had gone to the Ivy League, she veiled her real pain through "hahas" or dismissive statements. It was like she couldn't bring herself to shatter the image her friends and family had of her. They believed her to be perfect, and not even when her life depended of it, could she tell them that she was hurting and thinking of dying as a solution.
We live our lives online more and more each day. Work, school, entertainment, even friendships are carried out online, where we can control our message but we can't control others' messages or process them like we would in "real" analog life. If a friend tried to sell us, over a cup of coffee, the idea that her life was absolutely perfect, nothing at all worrying her or troubling her, we probably would not believe her. A sad smile would give her away, a too chirpy response. Something. Over social media? We don't have that. We're tricked into believing that Instagram is the full story. We don't have any tells to analyze. And if we're constantly bombarded by these images of perfection, we end up believing they're true. We end up believing we're the only ones with problems. If you pair that with a physiological chemical imbalance? Well, depression is a likely outcome. Feelings of inadequacy that, sadly, leave you even more impaired to connect with others. To be real.
This is what Fagan describes in her book, joined by the pressures of the Ivy League and being an athlete, and being in an unfamiliar environment. Freshman year can be rough. If it hadn't been for the handful of friends I made my freshman year, I'd have been very unhappy. I was in a whole different country, surrounded by people who seemed shinier than me. But I found my little group where I could be myself. Where we could talk about being homesick and hard classes and all of that. Maddy didn't have that. She tried to talk to her friends, of which she had many back home and a couple at her new school. But it seemed like she could never be fully real, she could never let them in to see the full extent of her pain. She couldn't bear to let them down.
This is why this book is so important. That kid who seems perfect? Might be more at risk than the one who's obviously struggling. Maddy did well academically in her first semester at Penn, despite thinking the contrary. She did well in her track team, despite feeling like she was floundering. Therefore, her parents, her coach never thought she'd unravel as fast as she did. Her parents clearly were involved in her life and attuned enough to their kid to know she was struggling, to know she needed professional help. They sought to get her that. It was too late. They thought they had time, but they miscalculated because Maddy still controlled the narrative. She told them she'd be fine returning for second semester, after trying to quit the track team and being convinced not to by the coach, she pretended she'd be fine. She wouldn't. She'd be dead within the week.
September is Suicide Prevention Month. This book should be required reading. Perhaps not for someone dealing with suicidal ideation, but everyone else. We might recognize in time the signs in one of our loved ones, or in our selves, and that might make all the difference.
I have some trouble with Goodreads' Star-rating method. Five is "it was amazing." I'm not sure I'd call What Made Maddy Run "amazing," what I would call it is: important. Vital even. Whether you're still a teenager, a parent of one, or neither. Because its subject matter applies to all of us: the many compounding factors that could lead any person down a path of depression, isolation, and culminate in a tragic ending.
What Fagan describes in this book, using Madison Holleran's suicide and Fagan's own struggles with mental health as examples, is what you could call a perfect storm. An uber-conscious, achingly perfectionist young woman used to excelling at everything she did, used to her peers' acclaim and her friends' support, used to controlling the narrative, and her life, to the point where everyone thought she had "everything", arrives at a new, more competitive environment where her drive to excel, her need for acclaim ends up being squashed by the reality that she's not so special after all and then keeps all her feelings, her depression, to herself to avoid breaking that mirage of perfection.
It was painful to read through Madison's letters to friends, text messages, conversations in which even when she talked about quitting the track team, the reason why she had gone to the Ivy League, she veiled her real pain through "hahas" or dismissive statements. It was like she couldn't bring herself to shatter the image her friends and family had of her. They believed her to be perfect, and not even when her life depended of it, could she tell them that she was hurting and thinking of dying as a solution.
We live our lives online more and more each day. Work, school, entertainment, even friendships are carried out online, where we can control our message but we can't control others' messages or process them like we would in "real" analog life. If a friend tried to sell us, over a cup of coffee, the idea that her life was absolutely perfect, nothing at all worrying her or troubling her, we probably would not believe her. A sad smile would give her away, a too chirpy response. Something. Over social media? We don't have that. We're tricked into believing that Instagram is the full story. We don't have any tells to analyze. And if we're constantly bombarded by these images of perfection, we end up believing they're true. We end up believing we're the only ones with problems. If you pair that with a physiological chemical imbalance? Well, depression is a likely outcome. Feelings of inadequacy that, sadly, leave you even more impaired to connect with others. To be real.
This is what Fagan describes in her book, joined by the pressures of the Ivy League and being an athlete, and being in an unfamiliar environment. Freshman year can be rough. If it hadn't been for the handful of friends I made my freshman year, I'd have been very unhappy. I was in a whole different country, surrounded by people who seemed shinier than me. But I found my little group where I could be myself. Where we could talk about being homesick and hard classes and all of that. Maddy didn't have that. She tried to talk to her friends, of which she had many back home and a couple at her new school. But it seemed like she could never be fully real, she could never let them in to see the full extent of her pain. She couldn't bear to let them down.
This is why this book is so important. That kid who seems perfect? Might be more at risk than the one who's obviously struggling. Maddy did well academically in her first semester at Penn, despite thinking the contrary. She did well in her track team, despite feeling like she was floundering. Therefore, her parents, her coach never thought she'd unravel as fast as she did. Her parents clearly were involved in her life and attuned enough to their kid to know she was struggling, to know she needed professional help. They sought to get her that. It was too late. They thought they had time, but they miscalculated because Maddy still controlled the narrative. She told them she'd be fine returning for second semester, after trying to quit the track team and being convinced not to by the coach, she pretended she'd be fine. She wouldn't. She'd be dead within the week.
September is Suicide Prevention Month. This book should be required reading. Perhaps not for someone dealing with suicidal ideation, but everyone else. We might recognize in time the signs in one of our loved ones, or in our selves, and that might make all the difference.