I was super excited for this title after reading Amy Reeds book Clean. The concept for this book was a bit different. Where Clean was a series of journal entries Crazy is also epistolary but in the form of an email exchange between Conor and Izzy. Conor and Izzy met at a summer camp and live far enough apart that their friendship is long distance. Conor is an only child and lives with his mother a psychologist on a small island that requires a ferry ride to and from the mainland. Izzy is the youngest child of wealthy parents. She has an older brother with a recurring drug problem and her sister is happily married to her partner and they are expecting their first child together.

Conor is obviously in love with Izzy and wants their relationship to move to a new level but Izzy is consistently vague on her feelings for Conor. Izzy comes off as self-absorbed and frequently leans on Conor in their friendship expecting much but giving nothing in return.

I was initially intrigued but the constant whining of an over-indulged rich kid were not my cup of tea. Her characters problems and emotional issues are real enough but for me the ignored rich kid is cliche.

Ultimately a good read if you ignore the rich kid cliche.

The cover for the book flows with the covers of Amy Reed's other books which though they are not a series are nice if you are looking for more books by the same author. They are clean and simply designed but the stark white background can be compelling enough to encourage a pick up! If I had to choose I would recommend Clean over Crazy as a reading choice ( )

Hard-hitting and edgy YA books have always been what I gravitate too. Tough issues, especially mental illness has always intrigued me and i'll read any book with characters that deal with any type of mental illness. I read clean by Amy Reed last year and loved it, and this one was no exception. I also have Beautiful by Amy Reed sitting on my ever-growing TBR pile and i'm hoping to get to it sometime soon.

I loved the set-up of this book in the way that it was all emails and im's I think it gave a fresh take on the story, and although it dosen't always work, it's a nice change of pace rather then simply reading straight narrative or dialouge. Although i've never had a lot of experience with people that have bipolar disorder i'm familar with the disorder and know the implications of it. I felt like Amy Reed wrote a very true character in Izzie the highs were too high and the lows were too low, and she made the disorder come to life on the pages.

If you like gritty, raw, contemporary YA and haven't read a novel by Amy Reed, then you need too because she is a queen of this genre. I feel like this book is one that needs to be re-read to really get everything there is to get out of this book because the characters are so well-delevoped and deep that you could easily miss something the first time around. ( )

Crazy deal with important and sensitive material, and as usual I think that Amy Reed writes about it with class, while still fleshing out the characters, making them realistic. This book is gritty at times, definitely keeping it real.
One important thing that I didn't know before reading--Crazy is written in emails and instant messages. Honestly, I don't know if I would have picked it up if I knew that, but I would have missed out. It isn't like prose, which doesn't do it for me, but it is still a different experience than reading a novel written with narration. I think that something is lost when the emails are so detailed. I am not sure that the characters would have actually written emails like that. Parts of it felt authentic, but others seem like it is there just to give readers insight into what's happened.
Connor is such a good friend, I wish that he were mine. There are times though that I wish he'd stood up for himself and stuck by it, rather than automatically apologizing and having to worry if Izzy has gotten mad enough to abandon their relationship.
I really felt for Izzy, what she subjected herself to, and also what her illness did to her. I think that the mood swings and the descent into mental illness was well-written, and I could see where Connor would've written things off when he did, and why he was concerned.
These characters were hard to pin down in that I wasn't sure if I liked or hated them. They made me feel though, so they did their job. I was never bored, and never wanted to put it down, even when I wanted to smack some sense into the characters, whether Izzy or Connor or Izzy's family.
The end is like a train-wreck, I could see it coming, couldn't do anything to stop it, and couldn't look away. (Not saying the end is bad, just using the analogy. It was a beautifully written train wreck, lol)