Everything Here Is Beautiful

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.

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.

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.