Martha Manning

There are books you wish you had earlier in your life and those you really wish you could get people in your lives to read. This is one of them. An excellent book on daughter mother relationships,not only as child, teenager and adult mother, but as adult-adult relationships. My granddaughter may not be willing to read this now and quit textmessaging for a few minutes, but possibly she will in the future.

I read this years ago - scenes from it still illuminate my understanding of depression. This says something about the vividness of the writing and clarity of its honesty.

I don't often read memoirs, and this one has a few problems similar to others (e.g., stories that don't directly relate to the central narrative, too many characters to keep straight). However, it offers a personal and excellent view into the mind of someone severely depressed. It can certainly help people understand how to treat and act around a depressed person, and I imagine it can help give hope to depressed people by showing how she lived through it.

About: Written in the form of dated entries, clinical psychologist and psychology professor Manning tells of her almost 2 year battle with a severe bout of depression.

Pros: Very quick read. When I sat down to read it, I usually ending up reading it for longer than I had planned. Well written. Some of the best descriptions of the feelings of depression since Styron's Darkness Visible.

Cons: Her introspection, description and analysis work well when she's focusing on depression but there was a show more bit too much material about spirituality, religion and poetry for me.

Grade: B+ show less