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A review by biolexicon
Everything Here Is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee
5.0
Originally I was sent this book for free from the publisher and they couldn't have happened onto a pickier reviewer when it comes to how mental health issues are depicted (one of the main themes of this book). And I cannot even begin to stress how much this book satisfied my pickiness with flying colors and was such a powerful read overall.
I spent a fair chunk of my life working as a psychiatric nurse aid for indigent people institutionalized from illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (one of the main characters in the book is struggling with symptoms never quite defined by a diagnosis of either of these, but she's given both diagnoses at varying points in time). The way the author portrays this character is true to the behavior that I've seen in patients and the author hits this sweet spot in avoiding "they're just misunderstood" sentiment while also avoiding over-emphasizing "mental illness as disease" to the detriment of looking at how it becomes intertwined with personality such that it becomes difficult to see where one begins and the other ends.
The author also does a solid job of creating lives connected to those with mental illness and not flattening the strengths and mistakes in those lives. We read about the main character's sister helping her navigate mental health care, while also seeing that sister make mistakes in her own life. The relationship between the sisters is strained by mental illness, but also by personality conflicts as well. They're people, with mental illness or without, and with people comes differences and I appreciate the author's representation of that. The same presence of dimension can be said for the men in the main character's romantic life as well.
Some days it seems like there are way too many books (fiction, memoir, non-fiction...take your pick) on the topic of mental illness. A lot of them fall victim to being one-dimensional or narrow in scope. Not this one, it stands out among the crowd.
I spent a fair chunk of my life working as a psychiatric nurse aid for indigent people institutionalized from illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (one of the main characters in the book is struggling with symptoms never quite defined by a diagnosis of either of these, but she's given both diagnoses at varying points in time). The way the author portrays this character is true to the behavior that I've seen in patients and the author hits this sweet spot in avoiding "they're just misunderstood" sentiment while also avoiding over-emphasizing "mental illness as disease" to the detriment of looking at how it becomes intertwined with personality such that it becomes difficult to see where one begins and the other ends.
The author also does a solid job of creating lives connected to those with mental illness and not flattening the strengths and mistakes in those lives. We read about the main character's sister helping her navigate mental health care, while also seeing that sister make mistakes in her own life. The relationship between the sisters is strained by mental illness, but also by personality conflicts as well. They're people, with mental illness or without, and with people comes differences and I appreciate the author's representation of that. The same presence of dimension can be said for the men in the main character's romantic life as well.
Some days it seems like there are way too many books (fiction, memoir, non-fiction...take your pick) on the topic of mental illness. A lot of them fall victim to being one-dimensional or narrow in scope. Not this one, it stands out among the crowd.