The Boy Between by bestselling author Amanda Prowse is a complete departure from her usual type of book. Here she joins forces with her son Josiah Hartley to tell the devastatingly honest and moving account of Josh’s battle with depression. I knew going in that this wasn’t going to be an easy read, but nothing could have quite prepared me for the raw and painful honesty of both mother and son’s words.

Make no bones about it, The Boy Between is an important book to read, no matter what your experience of mental illness is. I know it from both sides, having gone through a mental breakdown myself a little under three years ago, but also having personal experience of seeing a loved one go through it and the effect it has not only on them but on the whole family.

So for me I could identify with both Josh and Amanda as their painful journey with depression unfolded. From Josh wanting to end his life to Amanda’s sense of helplessness as she tries to cope with seeing her son in so much pain. Their words are so heartbreakingly powerful and I felt every emotion right alongside them.

Oh my goodness, what a powerful read this is! I have to admit I found Josh’s side of the story incredibly difficult to read at times as it took me back to a time that I hope never to go back to again. A time of darkness and pain, of just wanting everything to stop!

But, as painful as it is to read at times, The Boy Between is also about love and hope and how, even in the depths of despair, you’re able to learn to live again. To smile and feel the sun on your face once more.

Josh, thank you for sharing your honest account of living with this devastating illness. And Amanda, your words have always had the ability to move me, but here you have laid everything bare and shared so much of yourself and how it feels to see someone you love go through so much pain. Your words are going to help so many people who feel they have no one to turn to! And for that I truly thank you.

I’m not sure I’ve been able to do this remarkable book justice as it is such an emotive subject for me, so finding the right words is far from easy. But my words are from the heart and I’ve expressed them in the only way I know how.

Suffice to say The Boy Between is a brutally honest and beautfully written book that I believe everyone should read. A powerful and emotional insight into depression that not only shares the personal story of a mother and son, but also sends out a clear message of hope and understanding to anyone out there who is suffering with their mental health.

Reach out. Talk. You are not alone.

Highly recommended.

I’ve had the review copy sat on my Kindle for a few weeks, ready to read and review but I decided to wait until I had listened to Josh and Amanda being interviewed for a recent Reading Agency event when they were interviewed by Natasha Devon from http://www.natashadevon.com. Having heard Josh and Amanda read from their book and talk about it, I settled down to read. This was a book I didn’t want to put down and this resulted in a late night of reading.

As readers of my book review blog know, I have many books this year due to having been furloughed. However this is one of the most important books of the year, and should be read by parents, teachers and anyone working with young people. During our recent work safeguarding training, we were told that one in six young people in the UK are now said to be living with a mental health issue, exacerbated by the current global pandemic.

Thank you to Josh for being so open and articulate about what happened, how his world changed and became grey. As Josh points out, there wasn’t one major incident that caused his depression, it was a combination of events and life experiences. Thank you to Amanda for also being honest about what she and the rest of the family did or didn’t do during this time. When we have children, we tend to learn as we go, with help from family and friends and in the age of filtered Instagram families, it can be difficult to remember that few people (if any) are actually experiencing perfection. Hopefully this book will help many other families who find themselves in a similar situation.

I work with young people and this book has given me more clues about what to look out for, than any of the ‘educational’ publications I’ve read, because it is written by someone who has depression, rather than someone who works with people with depression. I lost my own brother to depression five years ago when he turned 40. I have struggled to understand why he didn’t reach out but having read Josh’s story, I now realise that he was trapped in his own grey world.

This is an emotional, well written read about a topic which many people find it difficult to talk about. As I said above, this is a book that parents and teachers should read. I will be recommending this to family and friends. Most definitely a five star read.

DISCLAIMER : Thank you, Netgalley and Amazon Publishing UK for providing me with an ARC of this book. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

The Boy Between by Josiah Hartley and Amanda Prowse is an emotional and a brutally honest portrayal of their journey through Josiah's depression. I have never read an Amanda Prowse book. I have seen her name before, but I haven't gotten around to her books yet. When I saw this title, I was intrigued, and I wanted to know more about their journey and experience regarding depression. I have struggled with it and trying to not let depression or darkness rule your life is a daily struggle. Reading this, I can see the different perspectives and also understand what goes through a person's mind when they are battling their inner demons. I want to congratulate Josiah for being open and honest about his experiences. Being courageous enough to open up about one's inner turmoil is not easy and I pray he finds peace and serenity in life.

The book is written in alternating chapters of Josh and Amanda's perspectives. They talk about the different events in life and how they dealt with it. Their stories were heartbreaking, with the individual struggle at the forefront and the ill-equipped family's persistence to make Josh better. Reading their experiences I could relate to their pain and frustration. Also, Josh's struggle in surviving and living was heart wrenching to read about. I could see the patterns and habits that were making things difficult for him. The story is emotional, and I had a hard time reading it. At times the emotions were too much for me, and at times I couldn't put it down either. It is a very important book that needs to be read by parents and children alike to see and hear things from the perspective of someone who is battling depression daily. I believe this book is paramount in bringing awareness and understanding of what is going through their minds. And it can also change the cultural stigma attached to mental illness and mental health.

Overall, this book was an amazing read. It was a compelling read. The writing is good, and it engages with you from the very first page. I gave the book 5 stars. While at times it was heartbreaking and emotional, I also loved the openness, and direct approach both of them took in telling their stories. If you are looking for books that talk about mental health and depression I highly recommend reading this book. In my opinion, this book should be read by everyone, period!

My Thoughts: firstly you’ll notice that I’m doing things a little bit different this time, there’s no rating for this book because it just doesn’t feel right to rate someone’s harrowing journey with depression. you just need to know that I feel so honoured to be given the chance to read it & chosen to review it.

This really is a first hand account of what it’s like living with depression, I really felt for Josiah, I just wanted to bundle him up and hold him tight, reassure him that he really isn’t on his own.

I had to be on my own when I read this, because my eyes kept springing a leak and it just felt wrong to not give the book my full attention I just couldn’t deal with any kind of distraction.

The chapters told from Josiah’s point of view were a total mix of emotions and I felt a lot of them with him, I felt the darkness and the fatigue and just the total lack of any emotion at all at times, but then as the book went on I also started to feel the acceptance and the small rays of hope.

The chapters from Amanda’s point of view were just as emotional but for different reasons, as someone without children I found those chapters a little harder to understand but that doesn’t mean they were any less devastating.

I truly believe that this should be a required read for secondary school students, I feel it would help them learn how to deal with their own emotions but also to know how to help friends should they be going through something similar.

Lastly I want to thank Josiah and Amanda for putting this book out there and being willing to share the most devastating parts of their journey.

I've read quite a few books about depression but i cannot say enough wonderful things about this book. I could totally connect to the characters very well and enjoyed the book...

Wow what an absolutely eye opening book. I can't even imagine how hard it must have been for Amanda and Josh to live through this and write about it. What amazing strength they both have. This book was brutally honest about how depression affects not just the person living with it but the surrounding people. It made me cry in parts, as a mother you only want your child to be happy and to read about what was happening to this family really hit home how awful this illness really is. I have family who have been diagnosed with depression and admittedly having never suffered with it myself I have fallen into the partially sceptical category of people who have used the phrase "oh they just need to snap out of it and they are just being lazy" Reading this has truly opened my eyes and was a real learning curve. I urge everyone to read this. I've ordered a physical copy and will be passing it around my family to read. Simply amazing!

This book absolutely devastated and shattered me … into about a million pieces. In fact at one point I couldn’t even read it with my family around. I went out and sat in a coffee shop and read it there. I needed some anonymity around me to ground me and to remind me to breathe regularly.

Told with bare, open-faced honesty and authenticity, this is the heart-breaking story (I hate calling it a story, because that implies that it’s fiction and it certainly isn’t that!), of Josiah (Josh) Hartley’s life with depression: what it felt like, what it did to him, how he experienced it and how it very nearly led to his suicide. Simultaneously, Amanda Prowse (his mom) gives her own perspective of how she was prevailing under the very same circumstances … except that they weren’t really the ‘very same’, were they? Because she wasn’t the one having to deal with the thoughts and feelings that were going on in Josh’s head. Amanda may have been going through a parallel experience, but it was a wholly different one. We hear from both of them in alternating chapters.

To read this unflinching account of the all-consuming pain, suffering, fear, numbness, desperation, dread, anxiety, despair, and utter hopelessness that depression causes, not only to the person who is attempting to navigate life with what seems like a permanent dark cloud surrounding them, but also to those who love them, is like being given a tiny peek into what life must have been like for this family. Because I have no doubt that if other readers feel one iota of the sorrow I felt reading this book, then for Josh and Amanda, it definitely felt thousands of times worse having to live through it!

But … this is isn’t just a telling of what happened during that time in their lives. They didn’t decide to write this book just to share it with others – they wanted to share the hope that they discovered by being able to work through this illness together, and yes … depression is an illness. As is repeated numerous times in the book, would you tell someone with cancer to just go for a walk or have a to cup of tea and they’ll feel better? Obviously you wouldn’t! People who don’t understand the situation are quick to offer flippant advice: “He needs to find a proper job” or “If he just exercised properly” or “He just needs to pull himself together” (if I had five pounds for every time I myself have heard the words “He just … ” from others when referring to my own son!) So just as with any other debilitating illness, one needs to find out if there is medication that can work for you; are there lifestyle adjustments that need to be made? There usually isn’t a quick-fix or even a cure, but there’s often a lot that can be done to make some positive improvements if you have the right support. And this is the objective that Josh and Amanda hope to achieve with this book.

The points that are made in the book about mental health support specifically for university students in England were disturbing. As is pointed out, for ‘Freshers’ (what we refer to in SA, simply as ‘first years’), the amount of pressure that’s put on you to ‘live your best life’ because you’re constantly told that it’s the best time of your life, can be all-encompassing. And if ever there was a ‘right’ time for everything to go wrong, then this would be it! You want to enjoy this newly gained freedom, but you need to maintain a healthy lifestyle, attend classes, get passing grades, do your shopping, eat right, possibly also pay your student loans, which might mean finding a part-time job … the list is endless and the building pressure seems never-ending! This is spoken about in-depth. It certainly wasn’t something I’d thought about before and was an eye-opener!

This is a must-read! Not an easy read by any stretch of the imagination, but for anyone with children it should be prescribed reading! Don’t ever, EVER think that something like this can’t happen to you!

I don’t have enough words to thank Josh and Amanda for writing this book. Not only is it incredible that they’ve shared this in their own open, candid way, but the advice that is contained in these pages is invaluable – even when it’s not actually being portrayed as advice, believe me, the lessons are there for all of us to learn!

What do you even say when 5 stars just aren’t enough??!

The Boy Between is powerful, emotional, and most importantly, real. Josh (aka Josiah) and Amanda definitely have distinct voices in this - and that's a good thing. You get to see the story from both sides - the parent who only wants the best for their kid, and the kid who is struggling at times. Both sides are full of emotion, and the tale they tell together resonates with truth more than one of us has faced. A must-read for anyone who might be struggling or knows someone who is struggling.

Insightful. This has given me understanding for those who i know who are struggling inside themselves. I actually never about how friends and family deal with this. I hear alot about support groups for the families of cancer sufferers but not for the ones going through mental heath issues. This was well written and i have come away from it with a lot to think about.

This is hands down one of the most important and emotionally driven books I’ve ever read. Of course there were bits I didn’t like but they’re not even worth mentioning because this story, this true and heartbreaking story is so so crucial.

I highlighted my way through my kindle copy of this (and I’m no a highlighter!!) to remember the important bits, for bits I can resonate with and for bits I think should be remembered. I cried twice and my heart hurt all the way through. A mother to a happy, healthy but sensitive little boy I’d be lying if I said there isn’t a part of me that isn’t anxious about the world he’s growing up in, how his mind might develop. But I’m hoping that although it’s common, that this story is something many of us will never have to face.

Not only do I highly recommend this book but I urge you to read it - drop everything and pick up this book, even if you’ve never experienced a bad day in your life I guarantee you’ll learn something from this. Let the story, the statistics and emotions open your eyes to something that is right in front of us. Something that should be spoken about.

I would like to thank the author, the publisher and Netgalley for trusting me with an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.
Bestselling novelist Amanda Prowse knew how to resolve a fictional family crisis. But then her son came to her with a real one. In this book, Josiah and Amanda hope to give a voice to those to those who suffer, and to show them that help can be found. It is Josiah raw, at times bleak, sometimes humorous, but always honest account of what it is like to live with depression. It is Amanda’s heart-rending account of her pain at watching him suffer, speaking from the heart about a mother’s love for her child.
To say I enjoyed this book seems wrong as it was a long and emotional journey for both Amanda and Josiah, however, probably enlightened is more accurate. I felt both of their pain throughout. Usually you would get one perspective on living with mental health issues, but I loved how we were told two.
The statement of “unconditional love” is a term used loosely in current day, but the love and respect Amanda had for her son was truly this. It was hard to feel what she is going through and how all she wants is to “fix”, him. Her struggle seems similar to that of Josiah.
Josiah wrote with a stark truth, no holds barred, how his journey with depression affected himself. Talking about suicide is something more prevalent today. It appears in all areas of life. Josiah made me feel his pain, questioned himself and his family, but moreover, his relationship with his mum. He wants to be well for her first and him second which is so selfless and brave.
I feel privileged to have read this book. Despite my working in psychiatric care for 14 years, I feel like this is the most honesty I have ever come across and I learned so much too.
Thank you so much for trusting me with your story.

The Boy Between is an important and powerful book that I found extremely difficult to read in parts. The sheer helplessness of having a son suffering from depression shines through in Amanda (Mandy) Prowse’s searingly honest account of life with her son, Josiah (Josh). And there’s no sugar-coating on his part either. Depression is a cruel, desperate place to be – and there’s very little you can do as a mum, as Mandy finds out.
The shocking start to this book prepares the reader for what is to come: “The decision to end my life was one that came easily,” writes Josh. And throughout we learn how depression makes his life pointless and desperate.
This story of Josh’s life is told from both the mother’s and son’s point of view. Mandy is brave and loving , yet sometimes naïve, helpless and tactless. Josh gets to the stage of literally no longer being able to see colour, so bleak is his world.
Both expose themselves on the pages for the reader. I think that’s incredibly brave and salute them. Both talk directly to us, and it’s truly heartbreaking in parts.
One message that shines through is that we need to talk about depression, and mental health in general. There’s still such stigma and we desperately need to change this. “Secrecy, stigma, taboo, shame and judgement are enablers of this horrible illness when what we actually need is to expose how common this issue really is and confirm to those suffering that they are not alone,” writes Josh.
Mandy hopes this book will help others, claiming it’s one she wished she’d been able to read at the lowest points of their journey. Her writing is crystal-clear and she manages to create incredibly visual word pictures that enabled me to understand—and feel— what the family must have been going through, and continues to go through. She writes frankly about what she (and Josh) sees as her parenting mistakes.
On Mandy’s part, The Boy Between is part love poem to her son, part apology and part honest self-reflection.

I'm really late to the Amanda Prowse fan club but better late than never.

This book had me gripped from the first page. It is Amanda's story of her journey with her son as he battles depression and his own personal journey.

My heart went out to both Amanda and Josh and the raw emotion that went into the book was beautiful and heartbreaking.

As a mum I look at my son and wonder what his journey will be and as someone who suffers with bad mental health i hope he will knows I will be his rock.

Joshs' writing was beautiful and obviously shares his mother's talent in this regard.

I am so pleased I had the privilege to read such a stunning book and thank Amanda and Josh for sharing such personal stories that will be a huge benefit to anyone who reads this book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Boy Between by Amanda Prowse and Josiah Hartley is a non-fiction book that should be read by everyone! This is a book that Amanda and Josh wrote together about their experiences with Josh's mental health and how it affected and still affects them.
I took it upon myself to take part in this tour due to my own, very personal experiences with mental health and did expect this account to touch me pretty deeply and it definitely did.
It is told in alternate chapters by Amanda and then Josh, so we can see exactly how everything affects each other. An account that doesn't pretty anything up so makes a more forceful impact.
Josh was 19 and had the whole world his for the taking when everything began to crumble. His mental health suddenly began to deteriorate. A fog descended on his brain and it got to the point were he just wanted his bed and to shut everything and everyone out of his world. This is slowly impacting on his work and his tutor even thinks there may be an issue. As his mother, Amanda, as every other mother, just wants the best for her child, who has mainly struggled in the past due to dyslexia. Josh overcame this to get where he is at this moment and she is overjoyed that he is getting somewhere. Then the revelation that noone realises initially, Josh is sinking into that black hole that everyone calls depression and everyone experiences it in their own way.
I was touched by Josh and his brutal honesty in this book. I have experiences with mental health, not mine but my ex husbands and my daughters have both suffered with it. That tore me apart at the time, so I can so much empathise with Amanda as a mother amd a wife.
When you realise your child has something you cannot fix, you first begin to crumble but then, as a mother you stand up and do your very best to help them recover in any way possible. Amanda's personal account could have almost been mine too.
This book has been written with so much strength and love, these things shine through and I think this may help a lot of families understand that terrible thing known as Depression. A hard read but truly worth it to know we are not alone with these battles! Well done Amanda and Josh.
Thank you to Book On The Bright Side Publicity, NetGalley, and both authors for my copy of this personal book to write this review today.

Firstly, having the courage to openly discuss a time in your life where you felt suicide was the only option, with complete strangers and in the form of a book, is such a brave thing to do. I take my hat off to Josiah for choosing to put awareness above everything else. Its not an easy thing to do at all. I don’t know you, but I’m proud of you.

Secondly, Amanda….its hard enough being a parent, let alone being a parent who has to watch from the sidelines whilst her child goes through a situation only they can get themself out of. I cannot even begin to imagine how hard it must have been to go through that with Josiah, or the toll it took on your own mental health. Not only that, the courage it must have taken you openly dissect and ‘admit’ where you felt you went wrong as a parent, and to talk about such a heartbreaking time in your life. Your strength astounds me and I am so proud of you.

Depression is STILL seen as a taboo thing because you cannot see what is broken so, if you cannot see what is broken then nothing must be broken…..right? Completely and utterly wrong. In the book Josiah stated that he wished he had broken his arm or his leg because then he and others could see what was broken and what was needed to fix it. With depression or other mental illnesses, it isn’t a case of one thing fixes all.

How do I know this? Because like millions of other people, and like Josiah himself, I have depression and I also have a form of EDS too (hEDS in fact). As soon as I read about that diagnosis, my breath caught in my throat because I could relate to him on yet another level. I wanted to shout into the book that Josiah wasn’t alone because I could, and can, empathise with him.

This isn’t an easy read by any means. Its raw. Its hard hitting. Its emotional. Its dark. But above all else, its honest. Choosing to openly admit you were close to suicide, and choosing to talk about extremely personal things in order to bring awareness to the topic, is, as I’ve already said, such a brave thing to do. Unfortunately it can also bring a lot of judgement which, whilst its part of human nature to comment on the situations of the world and his wife, we have no right to do so as each and every one of us are different. Each and every one of us react to things in a different way, and what upsets one person may not upset another.

For example; in her chapters, Amanda spoke about how she felt she had let her son down with her parenting. Personally, I feel that she acted from the heart and in a way only a mumma bear knows how. I don’t think that she did anything wrong as a parent, because she was only acting out of love and fear. But Amanda does/did think those things. Is she wrong to feel like that? Hell no. Is my opinion wrong? No. Im an outsider looking in, there’s a huge difference.

Josiah’s story is a very relatable one and I would love to say that it’s unique in the fact that it doesn’t happen very often, but it does. What doesn’t happen very often is someone being so open about it instead of choosing to act like everything was all fluffy clouds and rainbows.

The honesty throughout this book, from both Amanda and Josiah, was incredibly moving and at times shook me to the core because I understood. Now me saying that isn’t taking the onus off them, not at all.

I am so proud of Amanda and Josiah for their strength and courage as they wrote this book together. It is such an important topic to discuss, more so as a one size doesn’t fit all and different things work for different people. I want to thank them both for sharing their stories with the world, and I wish I could hug them both. However my ramblings will have to do!

I cannot recommend this book enough. Its beautifully harrowing, tenderly heartbreaking, but poignant and severely honest. Its a little ray of hope when the skies turn grey. Its the one shining star in the night sky to help you on your way. Its a ‘friend’ when you feel like you have absolutely no one to turn to.

The boy between by Josiah Hartley and Amanda Prowse.
Wow. This book is about depression and anyone who loves someone with depression. Amanda and Josiah have a clear message for you.
Wow this book has real emotions. I had so many emotions while reading this. I have no words and get tissues as you will need them. 5*.

This is non-fiction a true story about a family struggling with Mental Health at a time when it still had a stigma attached. It still does today but at the time of this story it was much worse. Despite the progress some of the standard reactions to it still exist.

I am no stranger to mental health my mother had a complete nervous breakdown when I was 16 I remember that time, those days as though it was yesterday. Even so reading this book was very eye-opening. Tragic to think that at a different time this story would have had a very different ending.

The effect on family members of someone with depression is all encompassing and that came accross brilliantly in this story.

Told from Amanda and Josh's point of view the reader has a fly on the wall view of how depression affects not only the sufferer but also the parents, siblings. Any parents worse nightmare is for a child to have an illness they cant make better and that inability to 'fix' their child is something that eats away slowly and surely wearing the person down. Again this is something that came accross brilliantly.

I breathed a sigh of relief when at last there was a very small light at the end of the very long tunnel.

A heartbreaking story but one I am so very pleased to have read. Thank you so much to Sarah at Book on the Bright Side Publicity and the author for inviting me on the tour.

I don't think there's many people who can say that they haven't been touched by anxiety and depression, be it personal or extended family and friends. I fit in to all the categories and could relate to virtually everything that was happening in the book. It was brilliantly written and for the fortunate few who who haven't been blighted by this horrendous illness it is a good insight The love that the family have for each other shines through and the grass cutter job had me in bits, I sincerely hope that. Josh manages to keep the unwelcome visitor at bay and has a happy life from now on.

This is a book I so wanted to read, but it wasn't a book I necessarily wanted to review, how do you put words, your opinion, on someone’s life, someone’s struggles, a family’s trauma? What a brave and inspiring story, on both the parts of Amanda, and Josh, who are both suffering the effects of the terrible illness that is depression.
Luckily, I have not experienced this monster at the end of my bed, personally, or any close family member. Was I any less affected by Josh's story? Not at all. Not only will this book reach people who are, or have gone through such a terrible time, but also those who have not been affected, because, it can happen to any one of us, any one of our children or family, anytime. So, for that, I thank you for the insight into the way Josh felt, the reality of the disease, because it could happen to my children, and I now feel more educated as a result of reading Josh's brave story.
I feel like I would react exactly as Amanda explains she does, jolly, bubbly, all-is-well attitude, not fully being able to understand the fog that Josh is carrying and not being able to fix it. Because that is our job, as a Mother, to make everything all right. But, the family he has around him in Mandy, Simeon, Ben and is grandparents, truly do help, although we can see it's a struggle from both sides. As Josh points out, he knows he is lucky to have them (even though in his depths they were far from his mind, such as this illness takes over), many are not as fortunate, and for that I am sure many are grateful to read and relate to how Josh managed to get out of the depths and tell his story to people who need to hear it.

I truly am grateful to Netgalley, the authors, and publisher for the opportunity to educate myself with this book and hope that others gain from this story.

This Book Is One Of The Best, Yet Heartbreaking Memoirs I Have Ever Read. The Brutal Honesty And The Pain That Openly Writing About This Must Have Caused Is Evident On Each Page.

Even After Reading It, You Cannot Begin To Comprehend What Josh And His Family Have Been Through And Its Really Quite Amazing That They Have Found The Strength To Put Their Story Into Words On A Page And Share That With The World.

It’s Very Hard To Review A Book Like This Without Giving Away Too Much And Spoiling It For Others. However, I Just Have To Say That I Loved The Dialogue Towards The End When Josh Says “No way. Firstly, it’s my story and, secondly, I could never, ever, ever work with you on anything, ever. You’d drive me fucking crazy!” I Laughed So Loud And Hard.... It Just Lightened The Mood To Finish It Off.