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jilliant's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
I did appreciate the perspectives of these stories and how vastly different each one was. I just think they were a little too disconnected? There seemed to be a vague overall theme of dissatisfaction with the healthcare provided for mental illness, but nothing concrete. I just wish there had been a more unifying message to tie everything together?
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder, Mental illness, and Suicide
gboye's review
5.0
Wow. What an amazing and thought-provoking book on human experience and mental/emotional pain. I was truly touched by every single story and am sad I’ve finished reading the book. Diversity of stories and so much interesting history on approaches to mental anguish. I haven’t been this gripped by a book in a long time.
dantheman83's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.75
laura_corsi's review
4.0
An engaging account of how we think about ourselves and how the stories we tell about ourselves originate. Very interesting.
nopebook's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Minor: Forced institutionalization, Self harm, Death, Medical content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Mental illness, and Eating disorder
kalypsowolf's review
informative
reflective
sad
4.5
Every story told in this book touches on very important aspects of how our modern western understanding of psychiatry and psychology has blind spots or in a lot of cases is deeply flawed (see also: medical racism, sexism and colonialism). This is a much needed book in so many ways. Even though I recognized a lot of flaws in the system already (especially since I've been dealing with it since I was young), there were some things that I just hadn't thought about before and it really made me reflect on some of my own biases about medical treatment that I didn't even really know I had.
While I loved what this book was accomplishing, there were times when it kind of lulled. Mainly in some of the parts where it talks about the history of psychiatrics and psychology it got a little bogged down by just how much information there was to take in. And when you have sections like that in an already very heavy and difficult read it made me struggle to get through certain parts even when I found the main story really compelling and interesting.
Some of these stories are just really heartbreaking, though. Especially the epilogue. I left closing the book sobbing, so if you're like me and are really sensitive, be prepared to cry. This book is very much telling people's stories in what I see as an attempt to foster empathy and conversation, not just being analytical about the situation, so there is a lot of emotion in what is being written. At least in my opinion, anyway.
While I loved what this book was accomplishing, there were times when it kind of lulled. Mainly in some of the parts where it talks about the history of psychiatrics and psychology it got a little bogged down by just how much information there was to take in. And when you have sections like that in an already very heavy and difficult read it made me struggle to get through certain parts even when I found the main story really compelling and interesting.
Some of these stories are just really heartbreaking, though. Especially the epilogue. I left closing the book sobbing, so if you're like me and are really sensitive, be prepared to cry. This book is very much telling people's stories in what I see as an attempt to foster empathy and conversation, not just being analytical about the situation, so there is a lot of emotion in what is being written. At least in my opinion, anyway.