***Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of WAITING FOR FITZ by Spencer Hyde in exchange for my honest review.***

Addie, who has severe OCD, meets Fitz, a schizophrenic, on the psych ward of a hospital. After bonding, they plan to escape.

I’m a psychologist and I interned in a psych hospital, so I was excited to receive the ARC of WAITING FOR FITZ. Debut author Spencer Hyde’s above average world building was the best part of the story. In the preface, Hyde is said to have spent three of his teen years at Johns Hopkins for severe OCD, so I assumed he was either born in the 1950s or 1960s, before deinstitutionalization or extremely wealthy. Insurance barely pays for a week to stabilize patients before kicking them to outpatient or a day program. Maybe the preface meant three weeks.

Hyde got so much of the hospitalization details wrong, I became frustrated. I don’t mind a little creative license, but the hospital was unrecognizable to any reality.

-Fitz had been in the hospital ward two years. If he was that impaired he would have been in a state hospital, not a ward in a general hospital.
-a 12 yo girl would never be on a ward with 17 yo boys due to legal statutes.
-staff would never encourage romance between patients.
-private rooms, a ward with only 5 patients, coed wards (these are little things, but they add up to an unrealistic setting)

Addie’s OCD symptoms seemed plot driven, and not part of her character because they turned on and off in an unrealistic manner. OCD is an anxiety disorder, which was never mentioned. Fitz’s schizophrenia wasn’t well depicted. His thought processes were much too organized for the severity of the voices he heard and spoke to. He also didn’t show any of the ticks or visible side effects of the meds. Another patient who was a pathological liar was egged on by one of the aides.

I tried to give concrete examples and not pile on every inaccuracy. I’m picky because literature may be teen reader’s introduction to mental illness. They will assume accuracy, even in fiction books.

Unfortunately, I can’t recommend WAITING FOR FITZ.