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Summary: I ENJOYED LISA, BRIGHT AND DARK
Review: LISA, BRIGHT AND DARK WAS A DESCRIPTION OF THE LIFE OF A DEPRESSED FEMALE, COPING WITH THE FACT THAT HER PARENTS SIMPLY DON'T UNDERSTAND. i FELT IT WAS INTERESTING BUT IT WASN'T DETAILED ENOUGH FOR MY LIKING
Rating: 
Summary: An amazingly accurtae story about a girl who goes insane.
Review: Lisa feels there is something wrong with her. and she wants to see a shrink or someting. but her parents don't seem to think any thing is wrong with her and just blow it off. her friends Elizabeth, Bestey, and MN do their best to help their friend.
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Summary: frighteningly realistic
Review: Neufeld has outdone himself. This story tells a teens frightenig decent into madness. The characters are true too life, as well as the story line. Too many adults are afraid to get involved with things like this, or simply dismiss problems as a "phase"
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Summary: A gripping story that will stick with you forever
Review: When I was a freshman in high school (1984), this was the first book assigned to me for reading in my honors english class. This story is about a young girl who is losing her mind and struggles with the sense of it all. Her friends try to save her while her teachers and parents turn the proverbial cheek to her downhill spiral. I have never forgotten the details of this book and you won't either if you read it. I highly recommend it to all readers of all ages.
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Summary: ~*The best book ever*~
Review: I loved this book it was amazing! It's about a 16 year old girl named Lisa who was the most popular and prettiest girl in the school. She was even dating the hottest most popular guy in school. You would think that her life is perfect, but it's not. Lisa has a mental illness that she is dealing with. She will have her "bright" days where she is totally normal, and her "dark" days where she feels helpless and suicidal.
Lisa's friends were the only one's that seemed to care about her illness;everyone else shut her out and ignored it. Would they get her help before it was to late? Lisa was loosing her mind and mabey her life!!
I loved this book because I can relate to how she feels-- helpless at times, shutting everyone that she care's about out etc. This was a very great book and I think that anyone over about 15 years old should read this book, and any adult who deals with troubled teens.
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Summary: VERY disturbing
Review: When I was a freshman in high school (1984), this was the first book assigned to me for reading in my honors english class. This story is about a young girl who is losing her mind and struggles with the sense of it all. Her friends try to save her while her teachers and parents turn the proverbial cheek to her downhill spiral. I have never forgotten the details of this book and you won't either if you read it. I highly recommend it to all readers of all ages.
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Summary: Lisa, Bright and Dark
Review: I first saw this novel in a bookstore a long time ago (when I was about nine years old), and although I didn't know anything about it, the title stuck in my mind for years afterward. Only just last month did I finally read it!Lisa, Bright and Dark is a well-written and thoroughly gripping read. It chronicles the story of sixteen-year-old high schooler Lisa Schilling's descent into mental illness. Although Lisa's mother and father and teachers are inclined to ignore her, her trio of girlfriends recognize that something is wrong with her and decide to help her out. After learning everything they can about schizophrenia and other various mental disorders, the girls meet with Lisa for a series of amateur psychiatric sessions. Although of course they cannot give her all the help she needs, their determination to save her is touching and will likely make the reader wish he/she had those same friends. Set in the sixties (and originally published in 1969), the tale is narrated by Betsy Goodman, the most reserved and sideline-sitting of the three girls. This was, in my opinion, an interesting and well made choice on author John Neufeld's part, for as a result we get to learn things about the character of Betsy that we would not have been able to know otherwise. I have seen some reviews of this book where the reviewer complains that it seems antiquated (i.e. the girls' use of the word "groovy," Betsy's lusting after Paul Newman, etc.). I personally didn't find this bothersome at all. Instead I thought it had the effect of making the book seem like a period piece, not unlike the movie "Mermaids" - and also like that movie, the majority of its qualities are indisputably timeless.
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Summary: Lisa, Bright and Dark
Review: "Lisa, Bright and Dark" by John Neufeld. Is a great novel.I would recommend this book to any teen or pre-teen.
This book taught me just how important friends can be, especially when no one seems to understand or believe you.
sixteen year-old Lisa Shillings had everything and almost anything. She was; popular, smart, pretty,and was dating the most popular guy in school.
But Lisa wasn't so normal; she begins to develop mental illness. Her family didn't believe her; Lisa's teacher denied it. Her friends Besty Goodman, Mary Nell Fickett, and Elizabeth Frazer are the only ones who seem to be listening.
Taking matters into their own hands, Lisa's friends walk with her where adults refus to go. This book will grab you by the heart, I had problems putting it down.
The way John Neufeld chose to write this book keeps you on your toes, you are constantly wondering what's going to happen next.
Rating:
Summary: Just a great book!
Review: I remember the first time I read this novel. I was maybe eleven and looking around my parents' library of books. I thought I was "getting away" with reading an adult book (my dad taught middle school, so there was a range, though I wasn't aware of it). It was only later that I realized this novel was written for young people. For that, and the time of its publication (1969), I'd give this book five solid stars. Neufeld deals frankly with a topic that is (still) too often swept under the rug-- the mental health of young adults. I give it four only because time has done the plot a disservice. Young adult women today aren't aching over Paul Newman, for example. That said, maybe we're aching for someone or something else, and surely there are plot points of value, still, in this well written book. Lisa is impossibly real. She's envied by one group, ignored by another (her family, all told) and agonizing over the means to an end. How can Lisa, a troubled yet talentd person with many promising attributes, get the help she needs? It's true that Lisa's actual "affliction" is never spelled out for the reader. I believe, however, that the decision to leave Lisa vague was a conscious one on the part of the author. Lisa could be any person in any town of any class and race. Her frieds are steadfast, creative, and unstoppable. They work with what they have in order to find help for their troubled friend. This is not just a fictional treatment of emotional turmoil. This is a timeless story (with some dated references) that many readers will appreciate. The faith the friends hold in Lisa is more about friendship than it is about knowing EXACTLY what's going on in the inner depths of a person's heart. Maybe this is a story that's overdue to be told in an age of wastebasket terminology, labeling, libeling, media-entrenched sound bytes. Lisa's "ending" is a happy one-- not because we reach the heart of her illness, but because we know that she, in her darkest hour, is never alone. That is the brightness. Well done!
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