{"id":462,"date":"2019-07-16T10:00:45","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T10:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/wordpress\/greenblotter\/?p=462"},"modified":"2019-07-16T10:00:45","modified_gmt":"2019-07-16T10:00:45","slug":"review-of-kate-fagans-what-made-maddy-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/2019\/07\/16\/review-of-kate-fagans-what-made-maddy-run\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of Kate Fagan’s What Made Maddy Run"},"content":{"rendered":"
Review by Claire Fitzgibbons<\/h5>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Nonfiction. 320 pages. Little, Brown and Company: New York, New York, 2017. Paperback $16.99. Available Here<\/a><\/p>\n

Kate Fagan\u2019s 2017 book What Made Maddy Run: The Secret Struggles and Tragic Death of an All-American Teen <\/em>attempts to explain what caused University of Pennsylvania freshman Madison Holleran to commit suicide in January of 2014. Holleran seemingly had it all: a loving, supportive family, an extensive network of friends, and success in both the classroom and the track. However, Fagan splices together texts, journal entries, and interviews with friends and family to show that underneath the manicured image Holleran presented to the world was someone grappling with anxiety, depression, and insecurity.<\/span><\/p>\n

The book is organized in a non-linear structure, with the story switching between Holleran\u2019s ill-fated freshman year at Penn and Fagan\u2019s own experiences. Fagan battled depression and anxiety when she was in college at the University of Colorado, and she explains that these mental illnesses were caused, in part, by the pressure she felt being a Division 1 basketball player. Her recollections of her struggles with these mental illnesses allow her to relate to Holleran\u2019s story in an effective and compelling way, partially because their situations were so similar. In fact, Fagan mentions several times throughout the book that \u201cI think I know what she was going through, because I\u2019ve been through the same thing.\u201d Fagan describes in detail the thoughts that became so dark that she considered ending her own life, and by doing this, she gives the reader insight into the way Holleran may have been feeling herself. Her personal narrative makes it easy for the reader to understand how quickly and completely Holleran\u2019s depression and anxiety overtook her.<\/span><\/p>\n

The book is strongest when it looks at Holleran\u2019s downward spiral and the factors that contributed to it. Fagan tediously compiled numerous interviews with Holleran\u2019s family, friends, coaches, and associates, and these interviews, combined with Fagan\u2019s vivid writing, help make Holleran\u2019s changes during her year at Penn pop off the page. Sentences like \u201cenergy seemed to be leaking from her as if there was a pinprick nobody could find\u201d are highly descriptive and make the reader visually understand the physical toll Holleran\u2019s mental battles were having on her. Fagan also uses these interviews to explain the dichotomy between the way Holleran presented herself to the world, and the way she was truly feeling. The interviews with her friends and family describe a girl in physical decline, but the ones with her track coaches tell the story of \u201cthis successful, well-liked person.\u201d Later in the book, after examining Holleran\u2019s messages and social media posts, Fagan makes it clear that this dichotomy is the true theme of the book. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fagan was granted access to Holleran\u2019s personal computer, and spent over 40 hours looking through Madison\u2019s texts, emails, photos, and social media posts. Her research feels thorough, and she includes numerous text message exchanges between Madison and her friends to help support her conclusions about why she eventually committed suicide. Fagan pulls texts Holleran sent to various friends and family members that explain her unhappiness at Penn, such as \u201cI hate it here\u201d and \u201cI can\u2019t do it anymore\u2026 I\u2019m just completely stuck about it all,\u201d, but also uses the messages to portray Holleran\u2019s guarded nature. As she remarks later in the book, \u201cthe most important realization I would arrive at was how superficial the medium could be\u2026 she sent thousands of messages\u2026 and yet little was actually said.\u201d This sentence is representative of Fagan\u2019s larger theme, which is that teenagers are pressured by social media to present a manicured and edited form of their reality to the world, even if they are struggling inside.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fagan makes this theme clear by arguing that Holleran\u2019s story is representative of these pressures. Along with the interviews and text messages that show the conflicting sides of herself Madison presented to the world, Fagan examines Madison\u2019s posts on social media sites such as Instagram to show how she felt forced to make herself look happy, even if she was not. In one chapter of the book, Holleran\u2019s mother remembers seeing a photo Madison posted on Instagram and telling her that \u201cyou look so happy at this party,\u201d to which Madison replied \u201cMom\u2026 It\u2019s just a picture.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Fagan points out that \u201cCollege is supposedly about being cool and having fun, and admitting feelings of anxiety, sadness, and helplessness seems like the opposite\u2026 Even if [Maddy] was not having the college experience everyone told her she should be having, she could certainly make it seem like she was. Given the prevalence of social media amongst teenagers in current society, these criticisms are especially noteworthy and impactful. They bring into question how much harm social media is doing to young people, and if it is making teenagers more susceptible to repressing their feelings and not expressing their true selves and sentiments.<\/span><\/p>\n

Notably, Fagan mentions that hours before she leapt off the top of the parking garage at 1501 Spruce Street, Madison Holleran Instagrammed a photo of the glittering lights in Philadelphia\u2019s Rittenhouse Square. As Fagan writes, \u201cthis was not a picture of the real world, but a picture of what Maddy wished the real world looked like.\u201d Perhaps Fagan\u2019s description of Holleran\u2019s distorted view of what the world should be like will help save other teenagers facing mental health issues from suffering the same fate.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Review by Claire Fitzgibbons Nonfiction. 320 pages. Little, Brown and Company: New York, New York, 2017. Paperback $16.99. Available Here Kate Fagan\u2019s 2017 book What Made Maddy Run: The Secret […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.lvc.edu\/greenblotter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}