A vivid, feverish novel, of the escalation of teenage anxiety and panic attacks into mania. It’s not quite my experience with anxiety (thank god), but it feels lived in. A fantastic discursion into the virtue of understanding the root cause or just making up your own. There are scenes where I personally found it tough going, when the protagonist Nick gets ganged up on by the cool kids when getting high for the first time, expertly written by Clune in the intertwining external and internal sources. There’s a beautiful vignette towards the beginning of the book where Nick describes this idea of childhood prophesying, of telling his babysitter when the wind will rise. Remarkably touching in its view of the world.