While attending Mills College for a masters of fine arts degree, Nina LaCour wrote her young adult novel “Hold Still” as an assignment in order to complete a requirement. Since its publishing in 2009, it has received numerous reviews and recognition for its “fresh take on a well-worn subject” (The Horn Book) continues to resonate 15 years later “Hold Still” shows the complex feelings of guilt and loss that someone might experience after a friends suicide and the healing process afterwards.
Nina LaCour wrote that one of the many inspirations for “Hold Still” was when she was a freshman in high school, and one of her classmates had taken his life. She described how despite not being close to her classmate how it affected her and continues to affect her. This influenced “Hold Still” to help others feel less alone in their grief.
Caitlin has just begun her junior year of high school, but she is left to face it alone after the devastating loss of her best friend Ingrid, who took her own life that summer. “Hold Still” describes the first year after Ingrid’s death. The book explores themes of depression, guilt, loss and later healing through both the first person perspective of Caitlin but also through Ingrid’s posthumous journal entries. Caitlin discovers Ingrid’s journal under her bed, left there the night before her death. She reads a little of her journal every day, afraid that when she finishes it there will be nothing new between them ever again. As the story progresses Caitlin is able to make new friends, resume her photography hobby, and once again find hope. She realizes that true friendship didn’t have to die with Ingrid.
“Hold Still” approaches its topics of mental health and suicide well, and able to write about such things in a realistic way. Ingrid’s character specifically was well written, despite the readers never knowing her as an alive character, she never is just a dead girl and there is more to her character than that. Which is shown through her photographs, her journal, and Caitlin’s memories of her, and Nina LaCour did a good job at making her more than just a previously dead character. “Hold Still” is definitely an emotional novel, especially for anyone who may have experienced grief like Caitlin or hurt like Ingrid, despite this finishing the book leaves the reader with a sense of optimism, as Caitlin has come so far in her healing journey. There are also many interesting and pretty illustrations shown throughout the book that only enhance the reading experience. I definitely recommend this book to any who would enjoy a quick read that is both melancholy and hopeful.
