Scan barcode
A review by brilliantsilver
I Don't Want to Be Crazy by Samantha Schutz
emotional
slow-paced
0.5
This book was a big let down for me. It's a short read, I finished it in a day, even so, I found it really difficult to keep reading. There is a lot of focus put into describing pretty mundane activities, things that might have been more interesting for the author when she experienced them but as a reader are really boring. Things like: packing and unpacking for university, sitting in the cafeteria, and very plain conversations she has on campus. She dedicates a lot of time on repetitive details, like several uneventful parties where she got high then kissed someone. There was a lot of time given to pining over her ex-boyfriend and whining about boys she liked. It felt like reading a boring diary.
The mental health stuff many times felt like an afterthought. The book lingered a lot on the angsty feelings of developing adult independence, going back and forth between home and college, being 18 and wanting to stay out late, and I found that to be very average, and a little annoying at times. Maybe younger people would find that more interesting.
I wish we got to be more inside the author’s head. Many of the important conversations and events were just relayed “I told my parents that I had panic disorder and I had a therapist” but we are never IN that moment, we don’t know how her parents responded, or how it felt to confess. It’s a lot of “I told her this, we went here then we did this or that” the book lists off the events of the day but the scene just ends. The information is there but the journey is missing.
The mental health stuff many times felt like an afterthought. The book lingered a lot on the angsty feelings of developing adult independence, going back and forth between home and college, being 18 and wanting to stay out late, and I found that to be very average, and a little annoying at times. Maybe younger people would find that more interesting.
I wish we got to be more inside the author’s head. Many of the important conversations and events were just relayed “I told my parents that I had panic disorder and I had a therapist” but we are never IN that moment, we don’t know how her parents responded, or how it felt to confess. It’s a lot of “I told her this, we went here then we did this or that” the book lists off the events of the day but the scene just ends. The information is there but the journey is missing.