Reviewed by Hilary Hawkes for Readers' Favorite

Me and My Bacon by Ceanmohrlass is the story of teenager Mera’s life, family, friendships and problems as she adjusts to yet another new town and new school. So much unsettling moving around is caused by her mother’s struggle with bipolar disorder. At first Mera knows little about this illness because no one tells her anything – and she only sees the confusing and painful effect it has on her mother’s relationships and on her (Mera’s) own emotional state. Mera makes new friends, grows to like her mom’s patient new husband, Owen, graduates from high school, gets engaged, and then marries someone else. In her quest to be as unlike her mother as possible, with her unpredictable outbursts and often unkind ways of treating others, Mera seeks to be a good and understanding friend to those around her – with the result that she often finds herself sorting out or taking on responsibilities in quite mature ways.

Me and My Bacon is written from the first person point of view with young Mera telling her own story. The book’s writing style is a kind of young person’s journal then, and this draws the reader into Mera’s world, her problems, worries, hopes, and determination to begin to stand up for herself. Mera is a likable main character – individual and very believable, I thought. She has many of the typical emotional reactions and problems that children and teenagers of a parent with an ongoing serious mental illness can have. She often blames herself for her mother’s reactions, constantly fearing she must have done something wrong, while at the same time loving her mother dearly. Intriguingly obsessed with finding solace in eating bacon, she also has spells of feeling ill due to emotional turmoil and upset. Through the plot, which moves at a good pace, Mera begins to find herself and develops the confidence and courage to express her own wishes – thus eventually emerging from the shadow of her sometimes inadvertently neglectful mother.

Ceanmohrlass shows Mera to be both a typical teenager and a young woman with remarkable courage too. This is a story that shows the effects of mental illness on the whole family and how those effects shape the personalities and outcomes for children in the family. I do feel that stories like this, thought-provoking but not too heavily done, are important and a good way to enlighten and educate.