Alice Oseman's Solitaire is a very important book and here's why:
A lot of the time when mental health is being depicted in fiction, it centres so much around the person struggling with it. Which, of course, makes sense. It's important to show what people go through when they suffer from mental illnesses, and it helps others in similar situations know that they're not alone in dealing with it. But it isn't very often you see something from the perspective of a friend or a relative and what they go through when someone they care about is struggling. Solitaire is a book that's so important for this specific reason.
Here, you have Tori. A teenage girl who spends 50% of her time worried about her brother, Charlie, and the other 50% of her time trying to convince herself that she isn't worried about him. She puts so much pressure on herself to keep everyone's heads above water that she doesn't realise that she, herself, is starting to drown. Their parents don't know how to handle everything that's going on with their son, so they act like everything is fine, relying on Tori to be the problem-free "normal" one. That's a lot of pressure to put on your 16/17 year old daughter. Tori takes on the responsibility of keeping her family happy and together, which ends up having the opposite effect and drives them further away from each other. So now you have two siblings that are so near but not within reaching distance when they need each other the most.
Which leads us on to the themes of guilt within the book. This is something that is so well executed and hard-hitting and absolutely crucial.
Tori is someone who feels a lot of guilt and regret when it comes to what Charlie is going through. She feels partially responsible for everything that happened to him. It's not her fault in the slightest, but when someone close to you is hurting and struggling, and you notice but don't do anything because you don't know how, it takes its toll. A lot of the pressure that Tori's under comes from the crippling guilt that she's trying to hold in. It manifests itself into something entirely different. She suffers with anxiety, she has negative thoughts, she hyperfixates entirely on solving the Solitaire mystery so she has something to do while her family is barely holding it together. She spirals.
And what's super interesting about this is how Charlie has a similar reaction at the end when he eventually comes to terms with the fact that his sister isn't okay, either. He mentions how he noticed but didn't do anything, and he feels awful about it. The Spring siblings have a remarkable way of avoiding what's right in front of them because who in the world would want to admit that their brother or sister is the opposite of okay?
And to add to this, I think we really need to note the importance of Michael Holden within this entire situation as well.
Michael is there for Tori consistently. He shows up when she doesn't even realise she needs him, he comes back whenever she pushes him away, and it's almost as though he's her only form of stability within the chaos. And that's exactly what she needs. She doesn't know how to handle what she's feeling about her family so she's pushed everyone else away. She needs someone.
Because it's so easy to ignore the state of your own mental health when someone you love is going through hell. So now we have Michael, a character who essentially says, "I'm here. Let me worry and look after you, while you unwittingly take on the weight of the world." Of course, Michael has problems of his own but if he and Tori can share their burdens between the two of them, maybe the weight of all of it won't feel so heavy.
Alice Oseman created something so underrated and special with Solitaire. It tackles things that can be difficult to talk about but need talking about. It reminds you that it's okay to not be okay. You shouldn't feel bad about feeling bad. And just because someone you love is struggling, it doesn't mean that you're entirely responsible for them. It doesn't mean that you're not allowed to grieve and be upset about it. And it doesn't mean that you're not allowed to struggle through your own issues either. But it does mean that you can find your own support system and let them pull you out of the metaphorical and, I guess in this instance, literal fire that's burning around you.
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