Social Anxiety Disorder, Teenagers and Reluctant Readers

May 12, 2011 - PRLog -- If you know of someone with Social Anxiety Disorder, or if you have experienced it, this novel is a must read. Written in the first person, LABELED chronicles a year in the life of a teenager with Social Anxiety Disorder but misdiagnosed as emotionally disturbed. The novel doesn't offer solutions, but it does raise questions about the disorder and the diagnosis, as well as relationships, religion, God, family, and addiction.  It's an easy and quick read and captivates young readers.  A synopsis of the novel is as follows:

A series of failures can lead to success. My 70,000 word novel in the first person, written in the style of a memoir, demonstrates this in a realistic, historical, and ironic manner. It chronicles a year in the life of an idealistic, well-read, yet maladjusted teenager. Vinnie—an amalgam of the fictional Holden Caulfield and a young Jack London—hitchhikes across the United States with two friends. He returns home to New York disillusioned and spirals downward emotionally, spiritually, and socially. Vinnie blunders with girls and he reels from a failed relationship. He feels estranged from family and he questions his belief in God.
   Vinnie scores high on IQ tests and reads great books with voracity, yet he fails academically and self-medicates with increasing frequency. After failing at alternative programs at school, Vinnie’s high school psychologist arranges a transfer to a school for the emotionally disturbed, a decision in which his aunt, his legal guardian, does not agree. Vinnie does not attend the school, although he does ponder the psychologist’s label.
   The turning point in Vinnie’s year is the summer hitchhiking from New York to California and back. His drug use, social ineptness, social anxiety, and an arrest lead Vinnie to the doors of a rehabilitation center.
   The novel will appeal to adults, especially baby boomers, as well as mature young adults. The novel does not directly mention the time of the setting, but historical time tags show that the year runs from the spring of 1970 through the winter of 1971.