3.5 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this free of charge in return for an honest review.

I am generally a fairly pessimistic character, never wanting to see the positive of a situation, always cautious with regards to the possibilities of what might happen. Sometime I think that it is depression, but having read this, I know now that I have never suffered from depression.

In this short book, Almudena Sánchez has chronicled her decent into the pit of depression. Until it arrived in her life she thought it was just a temporary phase that people could snap out of. It turns out that she couldn’t. It consumed her, utterly. So much so that there were points that she wasn’t even able to wash her hair in the shower. The shower head felt like it weight 100kg and she was unable to lift it.

The most poignant description she has of it, is that it is like having a relationship with the dead. How every much you reject them, they always return.

There are parts of this that are utterly grim to read as she frequently stares into the abyss that is her depression. But in amongst these dark clouds are crepuscular rays of light from those friends and medical professionals that were caring for her. It was that and her books that got her through and out of the other side. As you join her all the way through her depression she is lyrical and lucid even though some of it was written during treatment.

I can’t really say that I liked this, some of it is shockingly honest reading. But I hope that her words and description of the tsunami of emotions that she endured may yet help someone else who is living their own hell in their own mind.

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