Thank you to Penguin Random House for my free audio copy! 

“Can a mentally ill woman ever be trusted with her own story?”

I’ll say three things about this book:

1) Content warnings: child abuse, suicidal ideation, mental illness, and chronic illness. This book might not be safe for you, and that’s okay.

2) Yes, I recommend this book. It’s a powerful memoir about pain, anger, resilience, and growth. The author writes so poignantly about her experience with prolonged abuse and how she interrogated it journalistically to find healing. I went back and forth between the audio production (read by the author) and the print edition, and I was struck over and over by the clarity of her words in describing something so incredibly difficult. Writing this book was an act of bravery, and reading it with a listening posture is an act of witness.

3) May is AAPI Heritage Month and Mental Health Awareness Month, and it struck me that Asian culture (in my experience) is not great about conversations around mental health. Last year, I struggled with my mental health for various reasons, and I’m thankful to counseling for equipping me with tools to cope in better ways. My instinct is to “eat bitter,” as the author writes: swallow it down, be tough, push through, don’t show your weakness. So, I’m thankful for this author’s perspective on where these topics intersect.