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kaitlynisliterate's Reviews (466)
This was an accessibly written and beautiful memoir about Anna Marie Tendler’s mental health journey centering around her stay at an in-patient recovery center.
For the first portion of this book, chapters alternate between her stay at the recovery center and discussions of her past (mostly her teenage and young adult years). The second portion of the book follows the next 2+ years of Tendler’s life after she leaves the recovery center. Notably, any discussion of her divorce is completely skipped over and we go straight into discussing the misery and perils of modern-day dating.
The prose is very straightforward with almost clinical descriptions of the day-to-day in the recovery center. I think some readers won’t enjoy the distance that this style of writing creates, especially for something so personal and raw as a mental health memoir.
The part of the book that stood out to me the most was the saga with Tendler’s therapist, Dr. Karr. I won’t give too much away but the chapters concerning Dr. Karr were the most intense and interesting to me, especially since there are no definite answers or closure.
Throughout this memoir, Tendler discusses her lack of religious faith and some of her spiritual (though she does not like this label) beliefs. She describes how awkward and embarrassed she feels around the mentions of God as if he’s real. These feelings, she acknowledges, are judgmental and not nice but can’t be helped.
In a similar vein, I felt awkward reading through the portions of this book where Tendler describes going to a tarot card reader, burning a Death candle to break psychic bonds from a past life, creating altars with collected animal bones, and more. Though I understand that these practices give her a modicum of peace and have helped in her healing process, I am unable to suppress the skeptic in my brain and truly ‘believe’ in what they are promising.
Though I greatly enjoyed reading this memoir, I thought that the last chapter was very weak and ended the book on an off-note. As Tendler writes, it was only at the very end of the writing process that she looked at her patient files from her stay at the recovery center. Anyone who has looked at their patient files will understand that they are never accurate and each person who contributes to it has their own way of recording information. So I think the disappointing and even enraging experience that Tendler describes will resonate with a lot of people. However, I see no reason why, during the editing process, this was kept in the final chapter. It feels like the second portion of this book was building towards something but then we are right back to discussing the recovery center.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
For the first portion of this book, chapters alternate between her stay at the recovery center and discussions of her past (mostly her teenage and young adult years). The second portion of the book follows the next 2+ years of Tendler’s life after she leaves the recovery center. Notably, any discussion of her divorce is completely skipped over and we go straight into discussing the misery and perils of modern-day dating.
The prose is very straightforward with almost clinical descriptions of the day-to-day in the recovery center. I think some readers won’t enjoy the distance that this style of writing creates, especially for something so personal and raw as a mental health memoir.
The part of the book that stood out to me the most was the saga with Tendler’s therapist, Dr. Karr. I won’t give too much away but the chapters concerning Dr. Karr were the most intense and interesting to me, especially since there are no definite answers or closure.
Throughout this memoir, Tendler discusses her lack of religious faith and some of her spiritual (though she does not like this label) beliefs. She describes how awkward and embarrassed she feels around the mentions of God as if he’s real. These feelings, she acknowledges, are judgmental and not nice but can’t be helped.
In a similar vein, I felt awkward reading through the portions of this book where Tendler describes going to a tarot card reader, burning a Death candle to break psychic bonds from a past life, creating altars with collected animal bones, and more. Though I understand that these practices give her a modicum of peace and have helped in her healing process, I am unable to suppress the skeptic in my brain and truly ‘believe’ in what they are promising.
Though I greatly enjoyed reading this memoir, I thought that the last chapter was very weak and ended the book on an off-note. As Tendler writes, it was only at the very end of the writing process that she looked at her patient files from her stay at the recovery center. Anyone who has looked at their patient files will understand that they are never accurate and each person who contributes to it has their own way of recording information. So I think the disappointing and even enraging experience that Tendler describes will resonate with a lot of people. However, I see no reason why, during the editing process, this was kept in the final chapter. It feels like the second portion of this book was building towards something but then we are right back to discussing the recovery center.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
This translation is so rough. It feels like a word for word translation, with little thought to style or form.
This was a quick, easy read but not McFadden’s best or even close. I found the plot to be quite predictable and the only plot twists that weren’t extremely obvious were totally absurd and out of nowhere.
Part of the reason that this book is so fast to get through is the amount of repetition that happens. Each of the 6 characters that we’re introduced to at the start has basically one defining trait which is hammered over and over. And for some reason, the characters also view each other as being defined by this one trait too.
The best aspect of this book was the childhood flashback chapters interspersed throughout. However, the last flashback chapter (after it’s revealed who these flashbacks are from) absolutely butchered everything. McFadden constantly uses the same plot twist in almost all her books and it’s “what if this person that has up until now been presented as the victim was actually the aggressor?”
Overall, I would say McFadden is an extremely hit-or-miss author and this one is a miss.
Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.