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3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
This book is really quite good. It's about a girl going away to college and starting off her life. Everything runs smoothly for the most part until she starts experiencing extreme cases of anxiety attacks. Throughout the book she struggles with doing day to day activities that come simply to most people and tries to fight against her feelings of anxiety by seeking professional help.
It doesn't have a set storyline, and I get the sense that it was published more for the sake of the author to share her experience with anxiety (obviously because it's a poetry memoir). I also feel that it accurately portrays anxiety disorder in its fullness with total accuracy.
If you're one of those people who likes to read books for the storyline or the feeling of resolution after you've finished, this isn't a book for you. This book is more written for people who have gone through anxiety disorders to help them feel less alone in their struggles. It ends very abruptly with no concrete resolution, but I feel that with this type of writing style and the subject at hand, it was necessary to end the book this way. When you suffer from anxiety, it never just resolves itself. It's always there. You just cope with it, and I feel like this book illustrated that concept very well.
Going back to writing style, it reminds me slightly of Ellen Hopkins in the poetic sense but less dramatic or detailed. Instead of varying each poem visually and structurally like Ellen Hopkins does, Samantha Schutz remains constant. Each poem looks and feels very similar to the one before without much variance. The poems sounded like diary entries to me while I was reading, and it seemed almost as if this book was written as she was undergoing these experiences. It is also very fast-paced in regards to time. The author records four years worth of struggling through anxiety within 208 pages and very little detail is given to actual events occurring at the time.
I give it three stars because I'm very picky with my ratings. Five stars to me is earned when all of the pieces come together perfectly (character development, setting, metaphor, emotional attachment, etc.), but at the same time, I feel like this book wasn't aiming to get a five star rating from anyone in the first place.
This is also my first serious review, so I'm sorry if it's horrible.
It doesn't have a set storyline, and I get the sense that it was published more for the sake of the author to share her experience with anxiety (obviously because it's a poetry memoir). I also feel that it accurately portrays anxiety disorder in its fullness with total accuracy.
If you're one of those people who likes to read books for the storyline or the feeling of resolution after you've finished, this isn't a book for you. This book is more written for people who have gone through anxiety disorders to help them feel less alone in their struggles. It ends very abruptly with no concrete resolution, but I feel that with this type of writing style and the subject at hand, it was necessary to end the book this way. When you suffer from anxiety, it never just resolves itself. It's always there. You just cope with it, and I feel like this book illustrated that concept very well.
Going back to writing style, it reminds me slightly of Ellen Hopkins in the poetic sense but less dramatic or detailed. Instead of varying each poem visually and structurally like Ellen Hopkins does, Samantha Schutz remains constant. Each poem looks and feels very similar to the one before without much variance. The poems sounded like diary entries to me while I was reading, and it seemed almost as if this book was written as she was undergoing these experiences. It is also very fast-paced in regards to time. The author records four years worth of struggling through anxiety within 208 pages and very little detail is given to actual events occurring at the time.
I give it three stars because I'm very picky with my ratings. Five stars to me is earned when all of the pieces come together perfectly (character development, setting, metaphor, emotional attachment, etc.), but at the same time, I feel like this book wasn't aiming to get a five star rating from anyone in the first place.
This is also my first serious review, so I'm sorry if it's horrible.
The prose of this book wasn't astounding, but I was drawn to it because of the story (which I do relate to). There's a surprising dearth of fiction about anxiety disorders - there are tons of books about dealing with depression etc. but not much within the anxiety category, interestingly. I'm not sure why this. Anyway, it was not necessarily an "enjoyable" read per se, but definitely a valuable one.
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
"I Don't Want to Be Crazy" is a memoir about experiencing overwhelming anxiety, coping with it, and living with it regardless. Samantha Schutz does a great job of explaining anxiety, panic attacks, etc. I feel like this book would be helpful to hand to anyone who "just doesn't get it" and can't sympathize properly with such disorders. As much as you want to reason someone through an episode, that's just not how it works. Anxiety can be is a dysfunction in extreme cases that some people don't treat the same as something physical, although, Schutz makes it very clear it can be inhibiting. Very inhibiting.
The reasons this memoir got a 3.5/5 stars isn't because it was actually missing anything, which might sound silly to say. It had a bit more than it needed, because a life is a lot of little pieces that add up instead of a concise story or solution. (Which unfortunately leaves a bit of wanting in a reader.)
Yes, there could have been more dramatic language and revelations, but that would have taken away from the every day of the panic and experience. As much as I wanted the book to end with some sort of conclusion, or say the events/experiences got repetitive, those things lent to the realness of what she was writing.
Anxiety/panic disorders don't "end" necessarily. It's not a clean cut happy ending, there can be remission and relapse, or it can just go on until you die. As much as this memoir doesn't punch you with an ending that knocks your socks off, it feels like a life lived and an experience shared. This memoir is ongoing, as is the condition, and I respect that.
The reasons this memoir got a 3.5/5 stars isn't because it was actually missing anything, which might sound silly to say. It had a bit more than it needed, because a life is a lot of little pieces that add up instead of a concise story or solution. (Which unfortunately leaves a bit of wanting in a reader.)
Yes, there could have been more dramatic language and revelations, but that would have taken away from the every day of the panic and experience. As much as I wanted the book to end with some sort of conclusion, or say the events/experiences got repetitive, those things lent to the realness of what she was writing.
Anxiety/panic disorders don't "end" necessarily. It's not a clean cut happy ending, there can be remission and relapse, or it can just go on until you die. As much as this memoir doesn't punch you with an ending that knocks your socks off, it feels like a life lived and an experience shared. This memoir is ongoing, as is the condition, and I respect that.
challenging
emotional
informative
fast-paced
good look into how anxiety disorders affect ones life
This book was very interesting. It's very hard to read about mental health issues, but it's something that we could all read and get a little more understanding.
affluent young white girl goes to college and freaks out with panic attacks and anxiety.
she tells her story in very clear, simple poetry that works well for the subject material.
she tells her story in very clear, simple poetry that works well for the subject material.
Schutz shares her personal history of a promising young woman whose world implodes when she begins suffering a psychological disorder. Every mental health story is different and the world needs all of them we can get. This verse memoir is honest and doesn't water down the ugly bits of her past but still maintains hope for her future.
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-paced
This book was technically a school book but I liked it a lot so I had to add it. This girls story was very inspiring for me and I hope I find a solution. She gives me hope.
I picked this one up on a whim in the poetry section of my library.
I didn't like this book very much. It was kind of hard to follow. If it hadn't been written in prose (I think that's the right word) I think it would have been a little better. More dialogue, too.