Set in a mental hospital, 14 year old Jeff deals with mixed emotions, loss and confusion. Jeff is constantly in a battle with friends, family, or even himself. Jeff’s sentence was a 45 day program in a psychiatric ward for teens. Jeff tried killing himself by slitting his wrists. He is constantly fighting with his psychiatrist and parents. He thinks he is perfectly fine and should be able to go home. Jeff makes friends and loses friends. Some of his friends are loyal, some are not.

The theme of Suicide Notes is choices. At the beginning of the book Jeff gets in an argument with his nurse. His nurse has to ask him questions about his life and personality. His nurse starts to ask him about his drug use and sexual activities. As soon as she brought that up he immediately stopped her and told her to leave. Jeff also had sit-and-talks with the other kids that were there. He decided to pretend like he was crazy and had something wrong with him. At the end of the book Jeff was tires of lying to his psychiatrist so he finally decided to talk to him and said “Okay, Where should I start?”
“Where a good story starts” said cat poop. “At the beginning” (243). Jeff finally started to Cat Poop on his 40th day of his sentence.

Suicide Notes is packed with real life situations. It also has many similarities to other books. The closest novel to Suicide Notes is The Island. These books both have a teen trying to find out about themselves and letting go to secrets. The book Suicide Notes is a great book for readers who want to be excited and thrilled. Suicide Notes is a strongly recommended book for boy teens who struggle with their identity.