A review by lauren_soderberg
First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Journey Through Anxiety by Sarah Wilson

3.0

Sarah Wilson’s First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Story About Anxiety has a few insights, but is bogged down by its editing stye and by the author’s own privilege. It’s more of a memoir than anything else, and while I applaud Wilson for being so forthright about her own personal journey through anxiety, depression, et al, I feel that it is full of mixed-messages. For instance: on the one hand, medication can be helpful to combat anxiety, but maybe not because the drug companies created anxiety terminology whilst simultaneously creating drugs to combat it. Also, there’s a lot of emphasis on Wilson’s sugar-free ideology, which mostly felt like a constant advertisement throughout the memoir. The only reason this is getting three stars instead of two is because I did find a few nuggets of advice (most of which I’ve gotten from other sources) that I found helpful.

I also love the idea of “making the beast beautiful,” which is something the author co-opted from a Chinese proverb. If the book had been more focused on that overarching idea, I think I would have enjoyed it more. I don’t think this is necessarily the book for people who have an actual anxiety disorder, rather it seems to pander to white spiritualism/white feminism subscribers, and doesn’t hold space for the marginalized (nor, I’d argue, for those who genuinely suffer from anxiety disorders).