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Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'
It's Not OK to Feel Blue (and Other Lies): Inspirational People Open Up About Their Mental Health by Scarlett Curtis
2 reviews
britgirlreading's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
slow-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders and Suicidal thoughts
Moderate: Suicide, Rape, Terminal illness, War, Vomit, Toxic relationship, Xenophobia, Toxic friendship, and Self harm
nickoliver's review against another edition
hopeful
fast-paced
3.0
I've been in a bit of a reading slump lately. The book I'd picked up barely interested me, so I went days without reading a single page - which is extremely rare for me. I usually read at least a little bit every day, but I just couldn't engage with a book the way I wanted to. Because of that, I ended up picking up this particular book - since it was simply a collection of essays, I figured it would be easier than a full-length novel. I could read an essay at a time and didn't have to pay attention for too long a time. And it definitely worked!
Now, before I delve into my feelings a bit more, I need to give a little disclaimer: I read the German edition of this book, which was abridged with only about 310 pages instead of the almost 600 pages of the English version - something I didn't realise until I went to mark the book as currently reading. So it's entirely possible that the original would've had some groundbreaking, amazing essays that I now missed out on. But judging by these 310-ish pages, I honestly doubt that.
What I did like about the book was that it was diverse. It didn't just talk about one kind of mental health issue or had authors who experienced their illnesses the same way, nor did the authors all focus on the same thing. Some essays chose to tell the story of the authors' lives with depression, anxiety, panic attacks, bipolar disorder etc. Others found it more important to make it clear that it was okay to have a wide variety of feelings - that anger was okay, that sadness was okay. There were even a few that focused on extrinsic factors that could have an impact on mental health, like homophobia, xenophobia, or even your own culture where talking about such topics wasn't the norm. I really appreciated that diversity, because I think especially teenagers - which at least my library considered to be the target audience - could profit from some of the essays.
And I admit that some essays - or at least some paragraphs of them - did get to me. They made me tear up a little, and for a short, glorious moment, I felt less alone, because I saw my own thoughts and feelings reflected back at me.
However, the essays that truly read personal and meaningful were only few and far between. Unfortunately, the majority of them were very surface-level, so the ones that delved deep kind of drowned in them. It could be argued that the authors attempted to keep it lighthearted, to not trigger the reader and instead make them see their own mental illness - or mental illness in general - as something that didn't have to take over your life and shouldn't be as stigmatised as it is.
But in my opinion, that didn't work that well. Instead, some essays just seemed like their authors put absolutely no thought into them and the message they wanted to convey. For example, Benjamin Maack just mentioned that he didn't meet the deadline and that made him a piece of shit and sorry about that. Some were extremely short - for example, Naomi Campbell's was literally half a page long -, and many superficial sayings could be found within them that were probably already obvious to most mentally ill people. Sometimes, I felt like I'd accidentally picked up some leaflet at a mental health specialist's office. There was a also a lot of repetition from one essay to the next, which obviously tempered my excitement, too.
I do have to say I really liked Scarlett Curtis's essays. She was the editor of the book, and you could see that the book meant a lot to her. And I think the idea behind a book like this is admirable! But overall, this wasn't as impactful as I'd hoped it would be.
Now, before I delve into my feelings a bit more, I need to give a little disclaimer: I read the German edition of this book, which was abridged with only about 310 pages instead of the almost 600 pages of the English version - something I didn't realise until I went to mark the book as currently reading. So it's entirely possible that the original would've had some groundbreaking, amazing essays that I now missed out on. But judging by these 310-ish pages, I honestly doubt that.
What I did like about the book was that it was diverse. It didn't just talk about one kind of mental health issue or had authors who experienced their illnesses the same way, nor did the authors all focus on the same thing. Some essays chose to tell the story of the authors' lives with depression, anxiety, panic attacks, bipolar disorder etc. Others found it more important to make it clear that it was okay to have a wide variety of feelings - that anger was okay, that sadness was okay. There were even a few that focused on extrinsic factors that could have an impact on mental health, like homophobia, xenophobia, or even your own culture where talking about such topics wasn't the norm. I really appreciated that diversity, because I think especially teenagers - which at least my library considered to be the target audience - could profit from some of the essays.
And I admit that some essays - or at least some paragraphs of them - did get to me. They made me tear up a little, and for a short, glorious moment, I felt less alone, because I saw my own thoughts and feelings reflected back at me.
However, the essays that truly read personal and meaningful were only few and far between. Unfortunately, the majority of them were very surface-level, so the ones that delved deep kind of drowned in them. It could be argued that the authors attempted to keep it lighthearted, to not trigger the reader and instead make them see their own mental illness - or mental illness in general - as something that didn't have to take over your life and shouldn't be as stigmatised as it is.
But in my opinion, that didn't work that well. Instead, some essays just seemed like their authors put absolutely no thought into them and the message they wanted to convey. For example, Benjamin Maack just mentioned that he didn't meet the deadline and that made him a piece of shit and sorry about that. Some were extremely short - for example, Naomi Campbell's was literally half a page long -, and many superficial sayings could be found within them that were probably already obvious to most mentally ill people. Sometimes, I felt like I'd accidentally picked up some leaflet at a mental health specialist's office. There was a also a lot of repetition from one essay to the next, which obviously tempered my excitement, too.
I do have to say I really liked Scarlett Curtis's essays. She was the editor of the book, and you could see that the book meant a lot to her. And I think the idea behind a book like this is admirable! But overall, this wasn't as impactful as I'd hoped it would be.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide attempt, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, and Homophobia
Moderate: Self harm
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