The Boy Between by Amanda Prowse and Josiah Hartley

I saw someone on Twitter discuss this book and said good things about this. After finishing Becoming I had been looking for the perfect book to continue my Audible journey. I am so so glad I chose this book.

The Boy Between. A Mother and Son's Journey From a World Gone Grey.

Amanda Prowse is a well known author and this time she shares the stage with her son Josiah, known in the book as Josh. We follow each of them with their own chapters discussing events throughout the years following Josh and his depression.

This is an incredibly moving story, even more so because I listened via Audible and Amanda and Josh speak their own parts giving it that real deep connection.

Amanda starts by discussing what Josh was like as a child and some struggles he faced even at such a young age. We then follow them both as Josh grows through school and then gets his place at university. At 19 years old in his dorm at university Josh decides how he will take his own life. Together they share this incredible step by step journey with as much detail as they can to how Josh got to this point where he saw no other way out. We discover that Josh is not alone in his thoughts and that depression is a very real and scary thing.

I was extremely moved throughout this books entirety. Amanda and Josh are so honest in their retelling of events and thoughts, and getting the perspective of the person suffering and also a close family member seeing the slow destruction of someone she loves, is at times hard to hear. However hard it is to listen to, it was clearly so hard living through and they did not sugar coat anything.

I loved that Josh was so brave to tell his story. Throughout I can hear and see his story through others I know who suffer either slightly or completely with depression and I must say it really helped understand their situation just that little bit more. The comparisons really were scarily accurate at times. His recollection of his actions and why he thought the way he did was both poetic and sad. I know that sounds odd considering the topic but it really was. He explained how colours had left him. He would laugh but there would be nothing behind that laugh. It truly was so sad but it really helped make sense of things I had seen and heard before.

And then there was Amanda's side of the story. Oh how I felt for her. A mother seeing her son slowly decline into a shell of himself and not knowing what to do about it. She tells us how she tried to be there for him, asked him if he was ok and what she could do to help. Was this helping? Was this simply smothering him and making it worse? What works for one person may not work for another, and may not work for another suffering with depression. She faced stigma from other people commenting on the situation while also trying to learn more about it herself. I really felt the helplessness with her.

Of course they are both writing/voicing this book so clearly the awful event does not happen. But depression is a real thing and this book, in my opinion, really teaches us about this while also connects on a deep level through a mother and son relationship. It teaches us that there is no tick box chart to follow for these kinds of things but also that if you are suffering you are not alone. There are many people who may feel the same and not know they have depression. Others may know they have depression but it is a completely different type/level. I think if we are all open to learning about this then the world can be a much more open minded, happy place.

This book was an easy five stars (and my first for the year!). Yes this is a really emotional book and can be a trigger for some people in a tough place. But for those of you that feel you are in a good place, or perhaps you want to try to understand these situations better then I highly recommend this book. It is tough, but tasteful and left me with so much admiration for Amanda and Josh.

The Boy Between by Amanda Prowse and Josiah Hartley

Pages - 286

Goodreads Rating - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Link

Amazon Link