Pieces of Me

Frequent blackouts, time loss, and fuzzy memories are a few things that 18-year-old artist Dylan, a white college student from New Rochelle, N.Y., has coped with for years in this empathetic portrait of a mental health condition by McLaughlin (Daughter). When she wakes up in a stranger’s apartment and learns that she’s been missing for three days, Dylan panics. She is soon diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder and discovers that numerous alternate personalities, or alters, have been cultivating entire lives for themselves during her memory gaps—and that their existence has been protecting her from memories of a childhood trauma she can’t recall. Beginning in Dylan’s anxious first-person voice, McLaughlin deftly integrates and fleshes out the various alters—collectively a system—and their histories across alternating perspectives via depictions of Dylan’s art, journal entries, and surreal scenes set in the system’s shared inner world. Jarring early transitions between Dylan’s blackouts contribute to effectively off-kilter pacing, gradually mellowing once she sets boundaries with her alters. McLaughlin treats Dylan’s system with compassion and renders scenes regarding sexual violence with care. An endearing budding romance and supportive characters round out this respectful and well-researched exploration of one teenager’s experience living with dissociative identity disorder. Ages 13–up. Agent: Deidre Knight, Knight Agency. (Apr.)