When Liza Long came out with a blog post called “I am Adam Lanza’s Mother,” her life changed forever. Most people know Adam Lanza as a murderer, the person responsible for the tragic deaths at Sandy Hook elementary school. But for Liza Long, she sees him as a reminder of someone close to her — her own son, “Michael” (pseudonym). As we find out in  Long’s book, The Price of Silence, Michael has autism and juvenile bipolar disorder and struggles with fits of manic rage in which he threatens himself and others. For Long, the fear of her son becoming like Adam Lanza is a real fear, and she mentions this in her blog post that became very popular shortly after the Sandy Hook shootings. Long decided to write her book to use her newfound voice to try and educate others about the nature of mental illnesses.

The Price of Silence came out in August 2014 and is presented as chapters all discussing different topics, such as mental illness in schools, stigma and mental illness and America’s mental health system. Long is incredibly well-informed, and it shows. Each chapter includes multiple stories that pertain to the topic discussed in the chapter, as well as many interviews with the people involved in these stories. Long also uses many stories from her own life — these are often the most heart-wrenching. She describes the many emotions, hardships and hard-won triumphs that are involved with being a parent of a child with mental illness.

This is a book that everyone should read, not to be entertained but to be educated. Mental illness is a huge problem in our country, and Long’s book doesn’t shy away from the hard discussions about the problems that surround it. Long understands that only when people are informed can things begin to change, and she clearly wrote this book to try to do just that.

Click here to buy the book on Amazon