I found the book dry to read. It felt like I was reading outside of the story, simply as an observer watching a woman struggle between living outside and living inside institutional care. Stating that I admire Marie Balter, her strength and courage to share her life story with society at large, and the incredible strides she undertook to be "the best version of self." It came through clearly how strong wise and compassionate she is, despite the adversity she lived through both as an adult and throughout her childhood. It is a book that shows the destruction of the past constraints upon those struggling with mental illness and how far we've come as a society - we have much further to go, and it's good we are no longer massively institutionalizing everyone blindly. If you hold an interest in reading stories about strong self-advocates and/or mental illness, I would recommend this book.