Messy, confessional but ultimately beneficent.

The book is a blend of genres: part memoir, part self-help, part philosophical and literary exploration. I would even suggest it is part novel. All of this makes the book odd, as it constantly doubles back on itself to interrogate the very things that it is doing and saying. It is filled with trigger warnings, caveats, apologies and statements of mistrust.

Writing about others, Martin is insightful and kind. What appears much more difficult is finding a way to write with sympathy for himself. He returns again and again to material that he describes as humiliating or shameful, sources of his self-loathing, miseries, and guilt. He tries to contextualize these experiences through the literature of suicide.

Unique.

A blunt and bracing read.

Disturbing, thoughtfully composed.