Ultraviolet by R.J. Anderson

Alison wakes up in a mental institution with no memory of how she got there.  As she begins to remember what happened, she also remembers confessing to killing a classmate.  But how she remembers that event doesn't make any sense because people just don't disintegrate. Do they?  As Alison struggles to make sense of that event, she always begins unraveling the mysteries of her own mind and her special abilities.

Dark chocolate, poured over velvet: that was how his voice tasted.  I wanted him to follow me around and narrate the rest of my life.  e-ARC

So this was different.  It starts Girl, Interrupted and then sharply detours into science fiction.  Alison wakes up in the psych ward of a hospital covered in scratches and bruises with no memory of what happened.  She is then moved to a mental health institution for young adults to recover and maybe tell what happened to her classmate, Tori, who disappeared the same day that Alison went crazy.  The description of Pine Hills, the place that Alison goes, is really well written and very realistic.  I could picture the place in my mind perfectly and it had a nice mix of patients that really illustrated the story the author was trying to tell. 

Another aspect of Alison's story is her synesthesia.  I've read a few books about this condition before and was interested to see it employed in this book.  I liked how it was made integral part of the story but was not the point of the story.  Alison didn't even realize that her extrasensory abilities had a name until part way through the story.  It gave the story some interesting depth and played nicely into the climax of the story. 

Provided by NetGalley
Publish date: September 1, 2011
Hogwarts: Astronomy