Review: Outcast - Denise Jaden

Review: Outcast - Book #1 LOL - Living Out Loud Novel - Denise Jaden - April 2018

I have to admit I did not see the story panning out the way it did, with the word Outcast and then the Track One. I thought that this series was about music, but it took a whole different twist than I thought and I found myself getting into it. One of the things that I love reading about is Mental Illnesses in Fiction, it has always fascinated me, and in Outcast it had that basis. Kass has been living with her dad and trying to look after him as his health mentally is declining. This all happened when her sister died eight years ago and her mum up and left her family. Now Eight years later, Kass is in high school and sees someone walking to her classroom. The person looks like a mixture between Kass's mum Abigail and her dead sister Meghan. Turns out that this girl is named Hope and her mum Gail is aka Abigail. Hope is Kass's half-sister or something like it and now Gail is missing and Hope needs Kass's help to find her. Things get even more odd when Kass's dad disappears as well. We later see Kass along with Hope and her newfound friend Eli waking up in the old Mental Institution and learn that they are all part of a study done by a scientist who sued the former Mental Institution Pemberton to see if Mental Illnesses are genetic and whether there are markers for them. Can Kass who seems to be the only one not affected by the drugs, save her family from the Madman along with her new friend the janitor and artist Patrick ? I have to admit I did get a little confused once they were in Pemberton and the ending didn't really make a lot of sense to me. I am hoping that Book #2 might shed some more light on the story.  If you are a fan of Edgy YA books and love reading about Mental Health, then check out Outcast by Denise Jaden - the first in the LOL -Living Out Loud series.