Overview: In this coming of age story, No, You’re Crazy: A Novel, by author Jeff Beamish, a teenage girl with a rare mental disorder attracts dangerous attention when she claims she can see into the future.

Verdict: When sixteen-year-old Ashlee Sutton’s home life falls apart, she is beset by a rare mental illness that makes her believe she’s clairvoyant. While most people scoff at her, she begins demonstrating an uncanny knack for sometimes predicting the future, using what could either be pure luck or something more remarkable.

And when she helps her drug-addict father win enough casino cash to accidentally overdose, she becomes the target of violent people determined to exploit her, and she goes on the run.

Ashlee reaches out to a distant relative, traumatized war journalist Mike Baker. Soon, at least in Ashlee’s eyes, they are both plunging dangerously into an existential rabbit hole where their core belief, that humanity and personal connections are a blight, will be put to the ultimate test.

No, You’re Crazy is a multilayered novel that examines the many ways a family can wound and heal us. A page-turning thriller and a sensitive look at faith and neurodiversity, it ultimately dares to ask, Who gets to decide what’s real?

Furthermore, and a book that fully deserves to be read in one sitting, although its magically alluring prose shouldn’t be rushed through at any cost, this sweeping book of connection, loss and love (and most every illuminating human factory sense in-between) is a uniquely captivating read brought forth by author Jeff Beamish.

Full of intertwining sentences, solidly written paragraphs, and artfully told chapters, what we witness on the page is made all the more intriguing by the fact that what our lead character is going through is nothing short of how a lot of people sense life to be today for themselves.

And although not a How To manual, by any stretch of the imagination, right there comes the most perfect word to sum this literary ride up: Imagination. For without it, not only can Ashlee begin to survive in the world around her, but the reader themselves can catch a little bit of its wide-ranging enchantment, thus following alongside our lead on her adventure(s) in perfect symmetry.

A hefty read, sure, but one that draws you in instantly from the very first paragraph on through to the satisfying, yet dulcetly-crafted, perhaps even dutifully thrilling conclusion, No, You’re Crazy will bring pause to ponder throughout a generation that reads it - given that how we define ourselves, our preconceptions on how life should be, are expertly veined throughout.

About the Author - Jeff Beamish is a fiction writer, former journalist and author. His previous novel, Sneaker Wave, was shortlisted in 2014 for a national fiction award in Canada. He has been fortunate to find inspiration in the stunningly beautiful scenery in the Canadian province of British Columbia, where he lives and works.

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