Picture Perfect by Elaine Marie Alphin (mystery novel, 2003)

[lb_lee]

Submitted by a kindly anonymous! Thank you, Anon!
 

Why would Teddy put his camera in my backpack? And when? Did he put it there on his way to--what? Meeting someone? But if the meeting was important, he would have wanted to take a picture.

 

He's but the one who put it there, Luke says.

I almost jump. I told him to go away, but he's come back.
I left it for you.
No! It's one thing for Luke to talk to me, but he can't just take off and do things. The very idea is terrifying. That's impossible, I try to tell him.
I told you--what happened to Teddy has changed everything.

Blurb: A gap in his memory the afternoon that his best friend disappears in a redwood forest has fifteen-year-old amateur photographer Ian Slater wondering about his own role in the mystery, and who he can turn to for help. To make things worse, his childhood imaginary friend, Luke, is back and very insistent that Ian needs to do something about his friend's disappearance.

Why is it worth your time?: This book is a young adult novel with a first-person perspective and plurality at its core. It's a relatively quick read and what caused us to realize that we are, in fact, a system. See content warning for more information.

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse:intermediate-focus, cofronting, type: medical, type: switching

Content Warnings: Ian as the POV character describes both past and present emotional abuse and physical neglect from his father, which he downplays for the first half of the book. His mother is both a fellow victim and an enabler. At the end, it's revealed Ian's father tried to kill his friend Teddy (and at the end tries to attack Luke when he fronts and reveals everything). A major aspect of the novel is Ian experiencing blackouts ("zoning out"), which might be disconcerting. Ian also thinks Luke is an imaginary friend, but over the course of the novel "he" realizes that "Ian" is a subsystem in a DID system, and that Luke is an independent headmate (though those exact terms aren't used. The text also implies but doesn't state that Luke is a Luke Skywalker fictive.) A teacher who helps Ian and Teddy is a former psychologist who was accused of abusing an 11-year-old client, but Ian believes him when he says that he's innocent and he does seem to have good intentions in the story.

Accessibility Notes: Can be found in print at libraries. Multiple screenreadable versions are also available on archive.org.

Comments

[stealthsystem]

Totally going to check this one out!

[lb_lee]

Same! It looks interesting!

[erinptah]

Just read this based on the rec, and I really enjoyed it!



Some extra warnings/notes, while it's fresh in my memory:

- Teddy's mother is also neglectful, she's an alcoholic, and is drunk on-page several times

- While Teddy is missing, Ian gets interviewed/interrogated by law enforcement twice, which is as hostile and stressful as you might expect

- The ex-psychiatrist teacher is gay, and there's some homophobia against him, including students insinuating that he's sleeping with Teddy and/or Ian (which he isn't). The past accusation of child abuse is clearly supposed to be part of the anti-gay slander he deals with