Everything Here Is Beautiful

As the older sister of a sibling with a mental illness, I resonated so deeply with the characters within this novel.

The author beautifully relayed the chaos and its effects from all angles and I can't tell you how much I appreciate her exploring those corners.

This is a good book, depicting the helplessness and the burden of living with a permanent mental condition like bipolar disease or schizophrenia. How family members or loved ones of someone afflicted live in constant fear of a re-emergence of the condition, and how their constant worry and tutelage brings ill-will into those relationships. And this is also a book about the unexpected bonds you make with people, forged in shared misery and love for others.

I haven't encountered many fictional tales about the reality and the strain of dealing with mental health issues, so I really appreciate this book. It was well told, yet I wished it would have taken a path a bit bolder, by being more experimental, or more dramatic in its writing style. There's something about a lot of the contemporary English-language literature these days, that just feels slightly too clean, too detached.

The best novel I've read about the toll living with mental illness takes on family members. So exquisitely empathetic and yet unflinchingly  honest - at times it took my breath away. I felt every page of this book.