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Lisa, Bright and Dark: A Novel
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Plot Summary of Lisa, Bright and Dark: A Novel
"Lisa is your average sixteen year old girl. She's popular and funny with a lot of friends and a boyfriend. But what no one else knows is that she is slowly losing her mind. When it finally becomes obvious that she needs help, Lisa allows some distant friends, one who was there when she tried to beg her parents for help, one who is a minister's daughter, and one who is an ex mental patient, help her.

This book covers her friend's trying to work through Lisa's dark days and try to understand her light ones. Their methods are unorthodox, but they try because no adult will listen. Lis finally takes matters into her own hands when she walks through a window, and finally goes to a mental institution where she gets better with the help of her friends and the staff."

Rachael High, Resident Scholar

Review Analysis of Lisa, Bright and Dark: A Novel
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book? - depressed
Time/era of story - 1960's-1970's
Family, caring for ill Yes
Who is sick? - platonic (!) friend
because he/she is - mentally ill
Internal struggle/realization? Yes
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book
Battle with a psychiatrist Yes
Brain/Body disability? - mental illness

Main Character
Gender - Female
Profession/status: - student
Age: - a teen
Eccentric/Mental Yes
Ethnicity/Nationality - White (American)
How sensitive is this character? - middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Average intelligence
Physique - average physique

Main Adversary
Identity: - natural phenomena
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: - a substantial amount

Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings? - 2 (a little)
United States Yes

Style
Person - mostly 1st
Accounts of torture and death? - generic/vague references to death/punishment
Unusual Style: - No single main character?
Amount of dialog - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
Most similar books to Lisa, Bright and Dark: A Novel
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Joanne Greenberg
I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier
The Anvil by Shelagh McKenna
The Doctor is Sick by Anthony Burgess
Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy


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John Neufeld Resident Scholar Profiles

TOP SCHOLAR:
  
Rachael High  

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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s).
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