One of my favorite books as a kid was The Shadow Club by Neal Shusterman, but I've never read anything else by him until now. Thank goodness this book appeared on my radar while searching to fill a challenge prompt! I couldn't put this down. The author neither glamorizes mental illness, nor exploits it as easy character development. Apparently this book was inspired/motivated by his own son's struggle with mental illness, and it shows. This is a book that feels honest, even when it's scary or sad or opaque. I didn't doubt Caden's voice for a second. 
 2016 reading challenge: a book with a main character that has a mental illness