Review: SOUNDS LIKE CRAZY by Shana Mahaffey

Story: Though she doesn’t remember the trauma that caused it, Holly Miller has Dissociative Identity Disorder. Her personality has fractured into five different identities, together known as The Committee. And as much as they make Holly’s life hell, she can’t live without them.

Then one of those identities, the flirtatious, southern Betty Jane, lands Holly a voiceover job. Betty Jane wants nothing more than to be in the spotlight. The rest of The Committee wants Betty Jane to shut up. Holly’s therapist wants to get to the bottom of her broken psyche. And Holly? She’s just along for the ride…



My Thoughts: What would it be like to have 5 people living inside your head A.K.A. “Multiple Personality Disorder?” How would it feel like to do things you’ve never thought of doing and sometimes not even remember doing them? How would it feel to have your actions controlled by someone else and, in the end, take the blame for it?

Holly can’t seem to get it together, not with all the people living in her head. Then, after her birthday, she makes a New Year’s resolution to stop messing around. But, like she said, “The resolve behind the New Year’s resolutions usually falters after 24 hours.” (pg. 25) This is so TRUE! People always say they're going to quit this and that, but, by mid-January, they always "fall off the wagon."

I often wonder if there is really anything wrong with talking to yourself. If it doesn’t hurt anyone, is it really wrong? If it keeps people from going on a killing spree, I’d say go ahead. Craziness saves lives.

At various times, there was a feeble attempt at humor, which was lacking in depth. I mean, I understood where she was trying to go with it, but it wasn’t enough to break a chuckle.

The entire story consists of nothing but the whiny banter of these voices trapped in Holly’s head. God, they must’ve given her lots of headaches (I know I got a few in the course of this book.)

Overall, I thought Holly was a spoiled brat, who wanted things to be done for her. I really felt that she never wanted to do the voice-over gig—she really didn’t want to do anything, to put it frankly—and I have absolutely no tolerance for people like that. I actually kind’ve empathized with the older sister, Sarah, the one who always has to take care of things and clean up the messes.

This book was okay, but I just thought that it should’ve been a short story; it just wasn’t interesting enough for a novel. What was the point really? The character was just nuts! It was an interesting theme, and the writer reflected great skills, but I just didn’t enjoy the story as much as I thought I would.