Not many of the reviewers of this one seem to have trichotillomania themselves, which is perhaps a testament to the difference between reading a memoir which is about something that you have intimate knowledge and experience of, versus reading one which is interesting purely because it illuminates a completely different set of circumstances to anything you've heard of before. I fall into the former camp, as a card-carrying member of the trichotillomania club, and I do think that this book, despite being primarily marketed as being one which will speak and appeal to fellow trichsters, might be more enlightening and interesting to people who haven't heard of it before.

Barbara Lally does come across like a genuinely lovely person here, and I think this book would be a particularly great resource to buy for someone who knows someone with trich to give them a better understanding of it; parents whose children have trich will find a lot in here to give them reassurance, information and ways to help their child. It's definitely a useful book, and I really do hope that more people with trich start writing about it, because if I have to read one more book in which the only person with trich is some kind of serial killer without eyelashes, I will simply scream. Barbara Lally is doing really good work in destigmatising a disorder which is actually pretty common (I'm not sure why some of the reviews here paint it as something rare or unheard of - it really isn't either of those things) and I hope that this is just the first of many such books.

An addendum: do bear in mind that, if you're reading this as someone with trich, there are paragraphs here which will very likely trigger either pulling or another kind of reaction. The paragraphs where Lally described in detail the sensation of pulling made me feel viscerally nauseous, largely because the hairs that she actively enjoys pulling are the ones that make me want to perish if I accidentally get one. I actually had to skim past whole paragraphs of - boke - descriptions of how it feels when the root 'pops' out. No no no, absolutely not, no thanks. I wonder if a trigger warning might have been helpful at the start of this one (I know that's a thorny topic, so I'm just putting the warning here!)