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Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You is about James, a teenage kid suffering from depression and a panic disorder he doesn't really want to admit he has. I thought the author used some pretty interesting techniques to really get his whole story across, especially because the story was told in James' point of view, so the author had to come across as a kid living a not-so-good life.
One of the first techniques I noticed was the fact that the author used dialogue to tell most of the story. It reminded me of how "The Lottery" was written, with a lot of information coming from the dialogue rather than more information coming from the narrator. Because of James' depression, he sees a therapist named Dr. Adler. Quite a bit of the story after Dr. Adler is introduced is told within the conversations between James and Adler. With their conversations, we learn more about the things James has gone through and how he feels about them (because obviously, he has to talk about his feelings in therapy). Although, it wasn't just the actual verbal dialogue telling the story. There was also a lot of information pouring out of James' internal dialogue. Even though James goes through Therapy, he struggles to really voice everything he's feeling, so the reader learns more about the problem as he debates it in his head.
Another technique was using character's back stories for their characterization. This was major in the development of James' character, but it also occurred with the people around him. One of the first back stories we hear about from James is the story of his mother. His mother had married James' father but soon divorced him. After that, another marriage and divorce. After that, yet another marriage and yet another divorce. James tells us about these marriages and the affect it had on his mother. We learn why she's so sad and tired now. All the back stories we hear from James helps us get the back story on him. Though the complete set of reasons for his depression hasn't been completely revealed, we can tell from the back stories (and the way he tells them) that his parents' divorce is a cause of his depression. His parents, both being rather self absorbed, don't really pay much attention to James. And he doesn't mind. The problem is, without them, he doesn't know what to do with himself. When they are with him, it seems they don't really listen to him, either. So far, back stories have been piecing themselves together and are helping the reader learn more about James' past; and especially about an event in his past he doesn't want to talk to anyone about.
The final technique I noticed while reading was the description the author used. The author described scenery and people more often than he would describe events happening (he left that to the dialogue, really). An example of description in this book is,
"Dr. Adler watched me patiently, in the way a psychiatrist would watch a patient, her face perfectly devoid of any expression except for a slight smear of concern."
This book had a lot of descriptions of people and places but I just had to choose this one. "her face perfectly devoid of any expression except for a slight smear of concern." I just love the way the author chose to say it. He could have easily said something like, "She showed no emotion except for a tad bit of concern," but he didn't. He chose a more creative way of saying it with the use of "smear of concern," and saying how her face was "perfectly devoid of any expression". It's pretty interesting.
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