Books with title Between The Acts

The world is full of pain. We all know that. This is the story about my battle but I didn't write it as a way to complain and feel sorry for myself. I don't want you to get that impression. I wrote it because growing up I didn't know anyone else who experienced the things I did. I didn't have the words to describe what was happening to me or how conflicted I was feeling. It took decades to gather a vocabulary that could make some kind of sense out of it and I was only able to do that by finding other people and stories and experiences that I could relate to and borrow from. This book is in third person because it was too hard to write in first person, but it was written with the hope that it might help someone else find the words that they might not yet have to describe their experience. Maybe you don't have schizophrenia. Maybe you aren't gay or struggling with religion or identity, but I think we all struggle at some time with figuring out who we are and what are place in the world is. My struggle happened to be an unusual one because it needed to be so that I could face it. Yours might not be so completely unsettling and that's good, but maybe you do have that part that also wonders about what is right and wrong? And real and unreal? Maybe sometimes you look at your daily life and wonder if there is any meaning to it? Or maybe you don't. I did. For a long time I fought myself to try to be what I never was. I drew courage from stories of people who also had battles to fight. So, if this helps someone else to confront that inner element of fear-- the fear of not being who you want to be or who you thought you were, then it's worth it.

Adopted as a baby by white parents who found her in an orphanage in Vietnam, Lily has always considered herself Canadian. When Karim – a guy she’s liked for a long time – finally starts to show interest in her, Lily’s best friend Brit starts to hang out with some grade-twelves with radical opinions about immigrants. After a conflict between Brit and Karim breaks out when other students share racist, anti-immigrant memes, a misunderstanding leads to a lockdown in the school. Lily finds herself right in the middle, forced to make hard choices about who she really is, and which friend she’s going to believe.Set in a school facing the real-life challenges of immigration, income inequality, and fears of violence in our schools, The In-Between is a realistic, relatable exploration of the complex social circumstances students must navigate in contemporary schools. Like Youssef’s international hit Jabber, seen by tens of thousands of young people across North America and Europe, The In-Between brings humour, sensitivity, and a deftly authentic ear to the adult-sized questions young people confront as they enter their later teens.