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book_girl_08's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
romcm's review against another edition
5.0
I listened to the audiobook and it was narrated by the author. Her voice is lovely. I think she may have been preaching to the converted here. The only thing I wasn’t crazy about was all the journalistic crap. I wanted to hear her voice, not ANOTHER rehashing of the Jam Study.
scribepub's review against another edition
A moving, insightful analysis of our collective pain and how we can heal. Australia needs this book.
Johan Hari, Author of Lost Connections
Funny, wise, poignant and compelling, Happy Never After is a brilliant intersection between searing personal experience and the wisdom of the elders: nothing brings us closer to despair than the relentless pursuit of our own happiness.
Hugh Mackay, Author of The Good Life
Faced with the crippling paralysis that comes with anxiety and depression, Jill Stark doesn’t completely crumple. Instead, she does what a good journalist does: looks it directly in the face in order to explain, investigate, and reveal. Anyone who reads this book who lives with anxiety will be a beneficiary of its courage and clarity.
Benjamin Law, Author of Gaysia and The Family Law
By looking back on her childhood, interviewing experts and amassing anecdotal data, Stark expertly links her lifelong struggle with anxiety with a collective social malaise that is exacerbated by our constant connectivity, underfunded mental healthcare systems and the pervasive ‘happiness myth’ … The book’s resounding takeaway that there are multiple ‘happy-in-betweens’ instead of one ‘happy-ever-after’ is an uplifting and liberating one.
Books+Publishing
Extraordinary … Stark address[es] this vexed question of what effect our over-stimulated, almost constantly wired brains are having on our sense of well-being.
theage.com.au
This is a book we need. Highly, highly recommended. Puts a deft finger on many things that I guarantee have been quietly troubling you for a while. A book for our times.
Susan Carland, author of Fighting Hislam: Women, Faith and Sexism
Exploratory and explanatory.
Miriam Cosic, The Saturday Age
Johan Hari, Author of Lost Connections
Funny, wise, poignant and compelling, Happy Never After is a brilliant intersection between searing personal experience and the wisdom of the elders: nothing brings us closer to despair than the relentless pursuit of our own happiness.
Hugh Mackay, Author of The Good Life
Faced with the crippling paralysis that comes with anxiety and depression, Jill Stark doesn’t completely crumple. Instead, she does what a good journalist does: looks it directly in the face in order to explain, investigate, and reveal. Anyone who reads this book who lives with anxiety will be a beneficiary of its courage and clarity.
Benjamin Law, Author of Gaysia and The Family Law
By looking back on her childhood, interviewing experts and amassing anecdotal data, Stark expertly links her lifelong struggle with anxiety with a collective social malaise that is exacerbated by our constant connectivity, underfunded mental healthcare systems and the pervasive ‘happiness myth’ … The book’s resounding takeaway that there are multiple ‘happy-in-betweens’ instead of one ‘happy-ever-after’ is an uplifting and liberating one.
Books+Publishing
Extraordinary … Stark address[es] this vexed question of what effect our over-stimulated, almost constantly wired brains are having on our sense of well-being.
theage.com.au
This is a book we need. Highly, highly recommended. Puts a deft finger on many things that I guarantee have been quietly troubling you for a while. A book for our times.
Susan Carland, author of Fighting Hislam: Women, Faith and Sexism
Exploratory and explanatory.
Miriam Cosic, The Saturday Age
sharondblk's review against another edition
3.0
I like Jill Stark. She sounds like someone I could be friends with. She sounds like she could live in my apartment building. I've read some of her writting in The Age. I like memoirs. I love a redemption memoir more than anything - except one read by the author on audio book. So why was this book dissapointing? Rather than feeling like I was following Jill's journey, it felt like a collection of "things I've tried". Some chapters felt like newspaper columns, rather than parts of a narative structure. Some were just annoying - yes, motorbikes are loud and horribe and scare my cat too, but what am I meant to do about it?
She makes some good points, but the book wavers between a memoir and a journalistic exploration of the wellness industry. if she has chosen one or the other, the results could have been outstanding.
She makes some good points, but the book wavers between a memoir and a journalistic exploration of the wellness industry. if she has chosen one or the other, the results could have been outstanding.
ainsweeeee's review against another edition
emotional
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
3.75
Most chapters gave me an interesting thing to consider in my own journey for anxiety, which I really appreciate. It has really given me a new lens for some things. However, nearer to the end of the book the chapters got less insightful and it was a bit of a struggle to finish. The ‘Things I’ve Learned’ checklist was lovely.
Would recommend if you struggle with anxiety or depression! You don’t have to read all of it if you don’t want to, but at least get up to the chapter about gratitude :)
Would recommend if you struggle with anxiety or depression! You don’t have to read all of it if you don’t want to, but at least get up to the chapter about gratitude :)
e11en's review against another edition
2.0
I love Stark's writing and am a big fan of her work, however this wasn't my favourite. The format is the same as High Sobriety (which I loved), investigative research seamlessly entwined with personal anecdotes/memoir of Stark's own experiences with anxiety. From a research perspective, the book offers a really great, introductory overview of many of the issues surrounding anxiety in today's society, it just unfortunately didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. If you follow the news and popular current events closely, you may feel the same way. The memoir components were powerfully written and they certainly evoke empathy, however reading about others' anxiety always makes me feel anxious. There's certainly comfort in the solidarity and familiarity of them; knowing someone out there is having similar experiences to you. But for me, that's pretty fleeting and it seems to eventually exacerbate any lingering helplessness.
lolabrigita's review against another edition
5.0
For me, Jill Stark’s book was the standout of the year – to the point where I’m actually re-reading it in audio book form, immensely enjoying the sound of her dulcet Scotstralian tones.
From a societal perspective, Stark had it all. She’d reached what she thought was the pinnacle of her career, publishing a book (High Sobriety about her year off alcohol, also very good) which became a bestseller. Her job as Health Reporter at Melbourne newspaper The Age brought her satisfaction. She had bought an apartment, which she shared with a doting pet cat called Hamish and was even dating a lithe and well-sculpted young AFL player. She was only in her mid-thirties, but she’d “made it”.
Stark has also suffered from crippling anxiety all her life and shortly after publishing her book, her world came crashing down around her ears, as her mental health spiralled out of control. Unable to work, she struggles to piece herself back together within the Australian mental health system, encountering many barriers along the way (such as a psychologist who ‘breaks up’ with her, what a terrible thing to do to a patient).
In this fantastic book, she examines our obsession with ‘happiness’ – how this often fleeting emotion is marketed to us as the thing we must all aspire to and what it does to our mental state. She seamlessly interweaves fact, case studies and interviews with her own personal experience, creating a text that suggests that perhaps we collectively waste our energies by chasing something we can only ever briefly achieve.
Read more here: https://www.birdgehls.com/australian-books-2018/
From a societal perspective, Stark had it all. She’d reached what she thought was the pinnacle of her career, publishing a book (High Sobriety about her year off alcohol, also very good) which became a bestseller. Her job as Health Reporter at Melbourne newspaper The Age brought her satisfaction. She had bought an apartment, which she shared with a doting pet cat called Hamish and was even dating a lithe and well-sculpted young AFL player. She was only in her mid-thirties, but she’d “made it”.
Stark has also suffered from crippling anxiety all her life and shortly after publishing her book, her world came crashing down around her ears, as her mental health spiralled out of control. Unable to work, she struggles to piece herself back together within the Australian mental health system, encountering many barriers along the way (such as a psychologist who ‘breaks up’ with her, what a terrible thing to do to a patient).
In this fantastic book, she examines our obsession with ‘happiness’ – how this often fleeting emotion is marketed to us as the thing we must all aspire to and what it does to our mental state. She seamlessly interweaves fact, case studies and interviews with her own personal experience, creating a text that suggests that perhaps we collectively waste our energies by chasing something we can only ever briefly achieve.
Read more here: https://www.birdgehls.com/australian-books-2018/
memily's review
3.0
The front cover reads like this will be about single life (my bad for not also absorbing the back blurb before investing in the idea of reading it for myself), and I suppose it is, in a way, but it’s much more about crippling depression and anxiety, and the author’s struggles and triumphs and her life lived. I enjoyed it, but it was an effort.
wtb_michael's review
2.0
This was a bit disappointing to be honest - I loved High Sobriety and am generally a big fan of Stark. This is a brave and clear book about her struggles with anxiety and depression, but it felt like a slightly mix of shallow research and memoir - having just read Fiona Wright's superbly thoughtful book about her struggles this just felt a bit underwhelming in comparison.