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Lights On, Rats Out: A Memoir
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2017
“ Lights On, Rats Out is unlike anything I’ve ever read―a powerfully, staggeringly honest book that is excruciating in places, and also completely haunting. LeFavour’s intimate account of her relationship with her psychiatrist is intensely compelling, forthright, and brave. Did he overstep? Was he somehow pulled in by her beyond what was therapeutically appropriate or helpful? This is a fascinating memoir in a category of its own.”―Dani Shapiro
As a young college graduate a year into treatment with a psychiatrist, Cree LeFavour began to organize her days around the cruel, compulsive logic of with each newly lit cigarette, the world would drop away as her focus narrowed on the blooming release of pleasure-pain as the burning tip was applied to an unblemished patch of skin. Her body was a canvas of cruelty; each scar a mark of pride and shame.
In sharp and shocking language, Lights On, Rats Out brings us closely into these years. We see the world as Cree did―turned upside down, the richness of life muted and dulled, its pleasures perverted. The heady thrill of meeting with her psychiatrist, Dr. Adam N. Kohl―whose relationship with Cree is at once sustaining and paralyzing―comes to be the only bright spot in her days.
Lights On, Rats Out describes a fiercely smart and independent woman’s charged attachment to a mental health professional and the dangerous compulsion to keep him in her life at all costs.
“ Lights On, Rats Out is unlike anything I’ve ever read―a powerfully, staggeringly honest book that is excruciating in places, and also completely haunting. LeFavour’s intimate account of her relationship with her psychiatrist is intensely compelling, forthright, and brave. Did he overstep? Was he somehow pulled in by her beyond what was therapeutically appropriate or helpful? This is a fascinating memoir in a category of its own.”―Dani Shapiro
As a young college graduate a year into treatment with a psychiatrist, Cree LeFavour began to organize her days around the cruel, compulsive logic of with each newly lit cigarette, the world would drop away as her focus narrowed on the blooming release of pleasure-pain as the burning tip was applied to an unblemished patch of skin. Her body was a canvas of cruelty; each scar a mark of pride and shame.
In sharp and shocking language, Lights On, Rats Out brings us closely into these years. We see the world as Cree did―turned upside down, the richness of life muted and dulled, its pleasures perverted. The heady thrill of meeting with her psychiatrist, Dr. Adam N. Kohl―whose relationship with Cree is at once sustaining and paralyzing―comes to be the only bright spot in her days.
Lights On, Rats Out describes a fiercely smart and independent woman’s charged attachment to a mental health professional and the dangerous compulsion to keep him in her life at all costs.
244 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2017
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705 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
October 24, 2017
[This was also published at my blog, the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography.]
Regular readers know that I've been seeing a therapist for the last couple of years, which started as a free side benefit of a coding bootcamp I attended in 2015 but that I've since expanded into her private practice, simply because I find the process very rewarding from an intellectual standpoint. And so that naturally has me reading a lot of "process" books about the act of therapy itself, one of the reasons I've become so enamored with the work of Irvin Yalom recently; so when I came across an opportunity to read through Cree LeFavour's Lights On, Rats Out, needless to say that I snatched it up quickly.
In actuality a true memoir, but a book that I thought was a fictional novel while I was reading it, both because of its narrative three-act-focused prose and just the sometimes outrageous nature of its plot, it concentrates mostly on LeFavour's remembrances of experiencing "transference" with her own therapist earlier in her youth, at a point in her life when she was compulsively burning herself with cigarettes and was eventually admitted to a psychiatric hospital because of her inability to stop. And in fact, despite the book delving into all kinds of other issues (her depression, her childhood being raised by famous intellectual hippies, etc), it's the subject of transference that turns out to be the way most interesting; for while we typically define such a term by the glib statement, "When a patient falls in love with their therapist," LeFavour shows that the phenomenon is actually a much darker and all-consuming thing, a neurotic belief that her therapist has become her savior, her father, her lover and her stern sensei, all wrapped up in one big glowing ball of flawless energy.
This leads to fascinating exchanges in the book, as her doctor -- who is fully trained to expect and deal with transference issues -- acknowledges and indulges LeFavour's dysfunctional behavior, eventually walking her out of the obsession and even giving her a copy of his notes after they finish their time as doctor and patient, simply because he believed that she would eventually write the exact kind of memoir about it that she ended up doing. And while the book has its problems for sure -- as others at Goodreads have rightly complained, it does drag down in the middle, and by definition all the self-reflection can get a bit nauseating at points from all the navel-gazing banality, especially if you're someone averse to the idea of middle-class white people complaining about their middle-class white-person problems -- if like me you're into books that delve into the nitty-gritty of what the psychotherapy process is actually all about, you're sure to find this a gripping and fascinating read, with poetic prose that elevates this beyond just a simple recounting of an incident from the author's real life, into the realm of true literature. It comes recommended in this spirit, while acknowledging that many others won't like it nearly as much as I did.
Out of 10: 8.6
Regular readers know that I've been seeing a therapist for the last couple of years, which started as a free side benefit of a coding bootcamp I attended in 2015 but that I've since expanded into her private practice, simply because I find the process very rewarding from an intellectual standpoint. And so that naturally has me reading a lot of "process" books about the act of therapy itself, one of the reasons I've become so enamored with the work of Irvin Yalom recently; so when I came across an opportunity to read through Cree LeFavour's Lights On, Rats Out, needless to say that I snatched it up quickly.
In actuality a true memoir, but a book that I thought was a fictional novel while I was reading it, both because of its narrative three-act-focused prose and just the sometimes outrageous nature of its plot, it concentrates mostly on LeFavour's remembrances of experiencing "transference" with her own therapist earlier in her youth, at a point in her life when she was compulsively burning herself with cigarettes and was eventually admitted to a psychiatric hospital because of her inability to stop. And in fact, despite the book delving into all kinds of other issues (her depression, her childhood being raised by famous intellectual hippies, etc), it's the subject of transference that turns out to be the way most interesting; for while we typically define such a term by the glib statement, "When a patient falls in love with their therapist," LeFavour shows that the phenomenon is actually a much darker and all-consuming thing, a neurotic belief that her therapist has become her savior, her father, her lover and her stern sensei, all wrapped up in one big glowing ball of flawless energy.
This leads to fascinating exchanges in the book, as her doctor -- who is fully trained to expect and deal with transference issues -- acknowledges and indulges LeFavour's dysfunctional behavior, eventually walking her out of the obsession and even giving her a copy of his notes after they finish their time as doctor and patient, simply because he believed that she would eventually write the exact kind of memoir about it that she ended up doing. And while the book has its problems for sure -- as others at Goodreads have rightly complained, it does drag down in the middle, and by definition all the self-reflection can get a bit nauseating at points from all the navel-gazing banality, especially if you're someone averse to the idea of middle-class white people complaining about their middle-class white-person problems -- if like me you're into books that delve into the nitty-gritty of what the psychotherapy process is actually all about, you're sure to find this a gripping and fascinating read, with poetic prose that elevates this beyond just a simple recounting of an incident from the author's real life, into the realm of true literature. It comes recommended in this spirit, while acknowledging that many others won't like it nearly as much as I did.
Out of 10: 8.6
May 3, 2017
To be honest, I'd give it a 3 because I just liked it. But I'm bumping it a star to make up for the ridiculous other ratings. It's rubbish that other commenters have found FAULT with the character/author's back story. Here's the simple matter: if you're someone who regularly critiques films or literature for being about "white people problems" or "middle class anxiety", don't bother reading this book.
For the rest of you slightly more sane lot (IE those of you who don't possess the sort of self loathing and guilt for yourselves being middle class-- assuming that your Goodreads account is a pretty good indication of your belonging to such a group), go ahead and read on:
If you enjoyed Jenny Lawson's Furiously Happy, you might be interested in this book. I think it does a fantastic job of exploring mental illness and is an intricate, raw self portrait of a woman who suffers deep psychological trauma. I commend LeFavour for her brutal depiction of herself, and I found her to be a fascinating human and a talented writer. However, I thought around the half-way point that it started to become repetitious and long-winded. I should also warn that this book could definitely be triggering. I found myself being sucked into the abyss, though I also have been reading it during a time of difficulty.
For the rest of you slightly more sane lot (IE those of you who don't possess the sort of self loathing and guilt for yourselves being middle class-- assuming that your Goodreads account is a pretty good indication of your belonging to such a group), go ahead and read on:
If you enjoyed Jenny Lawson's Furiously Happy, you might be interested in this book. I think it does a fantastic job of exploring mental illness and is an intricate, raw self portrait of a woman who suffers deep psychological trauma. I commend LeFavour for her brutal depiction of herself, and I found her to be a fascinating human and a talented writer. However, I thought around the half-way point that it started to become repetitious and long-winded. I should also warn that this book could definitely be triggering. I found myself being sucked into the abyss, though I also have been reading it during a time of difficulty.
never-finished
March 11, 2017DNF @ 50%
Maybe I was simply not in the mood for self-indulgent rambling but I found it really hard to keep interested in Lights On, Rats Out by Cree LeFavour and her history. She describes her family as being wealthy, fortunate, able to live, travel and buy whatever they wanted. Her parents enjoyed the vivid, drug-infused lives of the 1970’s, at one point living in Aspen as neighbours of Hunter S. Thompson. When LeFavour was a teenager, the family moved, and her parents abandoned her and her sister to their own devices. Their father found another life in California, and their mother preferred to spend time outside of the house, living with neighbours and developing lesbian relationships. She believes these are the reason she developed bulimia, then while in therapy, fell in love with her therapist and punished herself for the unrequited love by burning herself with cigarettes. I left her story during her stay in a mental hospital when she could not keep herself from self-harm.
LeFavour wears her dysfunction as a badge, the same way she wears her love for literature and dead authors as a badge. She frequently references quotes from novels, as well as Freud and Jung as a way to examine her own mental health issues. She admits that she is a typical privilege girl who has, really, no reason to be sad or depressed or suicidal. There is no obvious reason why she should be those things, but the human brain isn’t that straight forward. I am no expert, nor do I ever challenge the problems of others, but I found it hard to see past her infatuation with her own problems. Those issues include:
1. Her parents are wealthy therefore immature and distant
2. She’s had a lonely childhood
3. She’s can’t live up to her own standards and is a perfectionist
4. She burns herself with cigarettes
5. She’s in love with her therapist
I sympathise with LeFavour, and maybe her story could have been compelling if it wasn’t for her redundant, unengaging writing. It kept on going in circles, recalling the same feelings and conflicts. Basically, it was dull.
In any case, I made it halfway before I decided that my time is better spent on other books. I enjoy memoirs. I think the important thing with memoirs is for the person’s life to be very interesting, very funny or very devastating. For example, I really enjoyed Russell Brand’s My Booky Wook, but that’s because he’s a brilliant, sad, clown who laughs at his own mistakes and is hilarious and brilliant all around. I also loved Caroline Knapp’s Drinking, A Love Story, which focused on her alcoholism, battle with anorexia and addiction as whole. Its draw was her prose, her ability to stand outside of herself and examine drinking, why people do it, and how they live with it. There’s also A Million Little Pieces, the 2003 Best Seller by James Frey, the novel sort of memoir, which I loved in high school. I was hoping that Lights on, Rats Out by Cree LaFavour would be just as dramatic, devastating and lovable. Except that I was wrong.
Maybe I was simply not in the mood for self-indulgent rambling but I found it really hard to keep interested in Lights On, Rats Out by Cree LeFavour and her history. She describes her family as being wealthy, fortunate, able to live, travel and buy whatever they wanted. Her parents enjoyed the vivid, drug-infused lives of the 1970’s, at one point living in Aspen as neighbours of Hunter S. Thompson. When LeFavour was a teenager, the family moved, and her parents abandoned her and her sister to their own devices. Their father found another life in California, and their mother preferred to spend time outside of the house, living with neighbours and developing lesbian relationships. She believes these are the reason she developed bulimia, then while in therapy, fell in love with her therapist and punished herself for the unrequited love by burning herself with cigarettes. I left her story during her stay in a mental hospital when she could not keep herself from self-harm.
LeFavour wears her dysfunction as a badge, the same way she wears her love for literature and dead authors as a badge. She frequently references quotes from novels, as well as Freud and Jung as a way to examine her own mental health issues. She admits that she is a typical privilege girl who has, really, no reason to be sad or depressed or suicidal. There is no obvious reason why she should be those things, but the human brain isn’t that straight forward. I am no expert, nor do I ever challenge the problems of others, but I found it hard to see past her infatuation with her own problems. Those issues include:
1. Her parents are wealthy therefore immature and distant
2. She’s had a lonely childhood
3. She’s can’t live up to her own standards and is a perfectionist
4. She burns herself with cigarettes
5. She’s in love with her therapist
I sympathise with LeFavour, and maybe her story could have been compelling if it wasn’t for her redundant, unengaging writing. It kept on going in circles, recalling the same feelings and conflicts. Basically, it was dull.
In any case, I made it halfway before I decided that my time is better spent on other books. I enjoy memoirs. I think the important thing with memoirs is for the person’s life to be very interesting, very funny or very devastating. For example, I really enjoyed Russell Brand’s My Booky Wook, but that’s because he’s a brilliant, sad, clown who laughs at his own mistakes and is hilarious and brilliant all around. I also loved Caroline Knapp’s Drinking, A Love Story, which focused on her alcoholism, battle with anorexia and addiction as whole. Its draw was her prose, her ability to stand outside of herself and examine drinking, why people do it, and how they live with it. There’s also A Million Little Pieces, the 2003 Best Seller by James Frey, the novel sort of memoir, which I loved in high school. I was hoping that Lights on, Rats Out by Cree LaFavour would be just as dramatic, devastating and lovable. Except that I was wrong.
July 10, 2017
When I first began reading this memoir by Cree LeFavour titled, "Lights On, Rats Out" it became so utterly brutal, describing how she would go through her ritual of self-harming, almost without preamble that I wasn't really prepared for it. I considered quitting the book, something I rarely do... as it had unsettled me so much, but I put it aside for the day and gave it some thought. After deciding that it had just struck a personal nerve, I decided to give it another try, and I'm glad I did. The book is so beautifully written, and she works so hard to make changes in herself, understanding how her early days and lack of parenting affected her. Having read quite a lot about similar areas during my life, I thought I was fairly well read on the topics. But this book surely enlightened me a whole lot further. I applaud the author for so bravely and beautifully sharing her story that will surely help others that are thinking about getting help, but maybe don't know what to expect. You are certainly a beacon of hope. Shocking yet moving at the same time.
My thanks to NetGalley, Grove Press, and Cree LeFavour for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my review.
My thanks to NetGalley, Grove Press, and Cree LeFavour for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my review.
March 18, 2020
I love the cover of this book. The book. . . .meh. Not so much. It seems to be about a girl who's in love with her therapist and allows herself to be committed so she can continue in his favor. She has a big problem with cutting herself. I hope it was helpful therapeutically for her to write this but it was not of interest to me.
August 25, 2017
I had no clue what I was getting into when I started reading this book. I had requested it from the library, so there was something in the description that drew me to it, but by the time it arrived, I had forgotten it was a book I'd requested.
As I began reading I was immediately aware of something very familiar in this story of Cree LeFavour and her journey through mental illness, or if not through it, learning to live with it. I don't think it ever really goes away, but if you're lucky and are blessed with the right therapist and psychiatrist, you are given the tools to manage it. You also need a very strong will to live.
I came upon a paragraph towards the end of the book with a few sentences that I silently said "yes" to. The author was describing her psychiatrist who was also her analyst, and her afterthoughts about why he put her in a psychiatric hospital. "I have no regrets, even though part of my identity now includes a stint in a psychiatric hospital. I'm now forever inside the crude line drawn around the "mentally ill". The line demarcates those inside from those outside who remain within the norm".
Anyway, I was reminded of a rather hideous time in my life which was a 12 year battle for my life. I remain forever grateful to my therapist, psychiatrist, and mostly, my mother, who never gave up on me.
As I began reading I was immediately aware of something very familiar in this story of Cree LeFavour and her journey through mental illness, or if not through it, learning to live with it. I don't think it ever really goes away, but if you're lucky and are blessed with the right therapist and psychiatrist, you are given the tools to manage it. You also need a very strong will to live.
I came upon a paragraph towards the end of the book with a few sentences that I silently said "yes" to. The author was describing her psychiatrist who was also her analyst, and her afterthoughts about why he put her in a psychiatric hospital. "I have no regrets, even though part of my identity now includes a stint in a psychiatric hospital. I'm now forever inside the crude line drawn around the "mentally ill". The line demarcates those inside from those outside who remain within the norm".
Anyway, I was reminded of a rather hideous time in my life which was a 12 year battle for my life. I remain forever grateful to my therapist, psychiatrist, and mostly, my mother, who never gave up on me.
January 7, 2018
Overwritten, repetitive, wordy memoir littered with unnecessarily pretentious literary references.
See my other ten word book reviews at my blog: https://tenwordbookreviews.wordpress....
See my other ten word book reviews at my blog: https://tenwordbookreviews.wordpress....
August 3, 2018
If you've never waded into the morass of self-destruction, this book might tell you something new. But if you have, you know the drill. In this memoir, Cree LeFavour chronicles her mental health crisis, beginning at the age of 25 when she sees a psychiatrist for the first time.
A longtime secret bulimic, LeFavour sees the shrink for help—and ends up falling in love with him. A classic case of transference, so says Freud and LeFavour, though knowing it doesn't diminish her love for him. What follows is an escalating case of self-harm as LeFavour grapples with her childhood abandonment and her (likely) genetic proclivity towards depression, obsession, and compulsion.
The problem with books about the depressed, obsessed and compulsive is that they are, by the nature of their illness, very boring. Perhaps if you have a friend or loved one struggling with self-harm or compulsive self-destruction, this memoir can shed light onto what it's like to have the same thought over and over. The pleasures of ritual and repetition and pain, and the seductive seeming-safety of singular thought, can be bewildering to those who've never dipped their toes in it.
LeFavour tries to heighten the experience with allusions to literature, including Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain and just about every woman in the canon—fictional and real—who has ended it all. A galling number, it turns out, but those interludes didn't stop me from flipping to the back and scanning the pages for the miraculous recovery that allowed LeFavour to become an award-winning cookbook author, wife and mother.
To her credit, LeFavour doesn't pivot on an epiphany. Like most recoveries, she came by hers through
the grind of one day, one hour, one moment at a time. But, there's something irksome in slogging through the recovery stories of the very privileged. It's not that I deny LeFavour, the product of familial wealth, her right to pain—it's just that this might have been more inspiring if LeFavour also had to hold down a job and negotiate the annals of an insufficient insurance plan. You almost wonder if things would have gotten so bad if she had had to.
It doesn't help that Cree LeFavour isn't exactly likeable in this memoir (most depressed, obsessed and compulsive people aren't). By the fourth time that she mentions that her team of mental health professionals remarked on her "superior intelligence" in her files, I wasn't surprised that they also checked the box for "narcissistic personality traits."
Lastly, LeFavour lacks the propensity with language that has made other recovery and/or addiction memoirs I've read well worth the time. I'd only recommend it to people trying to understand the mind of a troubled loved one, or (very) long-recovered self-harmers who may find solace in the shared experience.
A longtime secret bulimic, LeFavour sees the shrink for help—and ends up falling in love with him. A classic case of transference, so says Freud and LeFavour, though knowing it doesn't diminish her love for him. What follows is an escalating case of self-harm as LeFavour grapples with her childhood abandonment and her (likely) genetic proclivity towards depression, obsession, and compulsion.
The problem with books about the depressed, obsessed and compulsive is that they are, by the nature of their illness, very boring. Perhaps if you have a friend or loved one struggling with self-harm or compulsive self-destruction, this memoir can shed light onto what it's like to have the same thought over and over. The pleasures of ritual and repetition and pain, and the seductive seeming-safety of singular thought, can be bewildering to those who've never dipped their toes in it.
LeFavour tries to heighten the experience with allusions to literature, including Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain and just about every woman in the canon—fictional and real—who has ended it all. A galling number, it turns out, but those interludes didn't stop me from flipping to the back and scanning the pages for the miraculous recovery that allowed LeFavour to become an award-winning cookbook author, wife and mother.
To her credit, LeFavour doesn't pivot on an epiphany. Like most recoveries, she came by hers through
the grind of one day, one hour, one moment at a time. But, there's something irksome in slogging through the recovery stories of the very privileged. It's not that I deny LeFavour, the product of familial wealth, her right to pain—it's just that this might have been more inspiring if LeFavour also had to hold down a job and negotiate the annals of an insufficient insurance plan. You almost wonder if things would have gotten so bad if she had had to.
It doesn't help that Cree LeFavour isn't exactly likeable in this memoir (most depressed, obsessed and compulsive people aren't). By the fourth time that she mentions that her team of mental health professionals remarked on her "superior intelligence" in her files, I wasn't surprised that they also checked the box for "narcissistic personality traits."
Lastly, LeFavour lacks the propensity with language that has made other recovery and/or addiction memoirs I've read well worth the time. I'd only recommend it to people trying to understand the mind of a troubled loved one, or (very) long-recovered self-harmers who may find solace in the shared experience.
April 12, 2017
This is a highly analytic memoir about the author's psychological treatment, diagnoses, and behaviour. Her main behaviours are burning herself and purging. She also often quotes scholars in the field to support her thoughts. A number of obsessions burden her. As such this book is unlikely to appeal to many people. It is, however, very well written and is brutally honest. Not having any of these behaviours myself, I nevertheless stuck with it mainly out of curiosity. What motivates someone to hurt themselves in this way? How can extreme pain become a pleasure, a source of addiction, and/or a release? Can therapy help this condition(s)? The first third of the book was very interesting but it was a bit of a slog after that. I thought another third of it could have been omitted or severely edited. Sometimes it felt self-indulgent. But this is a highly intelligent woman with excellent analytical skills and it must have taken both strength and resilience to be able to write this book.
January 23, 2019
This is the second time I've tried to read this book, and honestly it was painful to finish it. There is a certain something that is lacking in the writing which makes it extremely difficult to stay present with the story. Her blatant refusal to acknowledge and admit that her choices have contributed to her declining mental state is infuriating, to say in the least. Furthermore, the relationship that she builds with her psychiatrist is unprofessional, unethical, and quite frankly disturbing. I absolutely would not recommend this book.
August 21, 2017
Cree LeFavour takes us on a dark and twisted journey into an unusual period of her life where her mental health led her to self-mutilation. Her wit, poeticism, and sense of humor about her struggle with mental health make this a fantastically juicy and beautiful read. The intention is not to make you feel sorry for her plight, but to look back on an unusual life moment with the wisdom and humor of an adult who survived some crazy stuff. It's raw, dark, and dirty.
August 8, 2017
I am trying hard to finish this book.
The author was unhappy and burned herself with cigarettes.
She enjoyed it and never felt remorse.
I think she enjoyed shocking people with the brutality of this behavior and always placed the burns on visible places or told others about them.
This is why she wrote the book--to show us her burns too.
The author was unhappy and burned herself with cigarettes.
She enjoyed it and never felt remorse.
I think she enjoyed shocking people with the brutality of this behavior and always placed the burns on visible places or told others about them.
This is why she wrote the book--to show us her burns too.
January 18, 2018
I really believed this was going to go somewhere...then wondered...that it ended and I was like WTF. Nothing happens. You get the jist of it about quarter of the way in. Nothing else happens and the book ends. Stinker
March 29, 2018
Recommended by Rob.
Check our catalog: https://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore...
Check our catalog: https://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore...
October 14, 2017
Perhaps the best mental health memoir I've ever read.
I liked this book better than both Prozac Nation and Girl, Interrupted. I felt that it came full circle in a way that most mental health memoirs never do. Maybe it's because recovery is something you must work on everyday until years pass and before you know it being hospitalized is a distant unpleasant memory.
Now for some favorite bits,
"The novels I read with reckless urgency have been my moral and intellectual guides-"
"Habit. Ritual. The beauty of repetition. The music and I have a thing that goes together. There's a secret to this even if I'm not entirely in on it."
"I empathize with characters in films and novels to the point of failing to maintain my own identity- it returns, of course, but not before the other is consciously shaken off."
I liked this book better than both Prozac Nation and Girl, Interrupted. I felt that it came full circle in a way that most mental health memoirs never do. Maybe it's because recovery is something you must work on everyday until years pass and before you know it being hospitalized is a distant unpleasant memory.
Now for some favorite bits,
"The novels I read with reckless urgency have been my moral and intellectual guides-"
"Habit. Ritual. The beauty of repetition. The music and I have a thing that goes together. There's a secret to this even if I'm not entirely in on it."
"I empathize with characters in films and novels to the point of failing to maintain my own identity- it returns, of course, but not before the other is consciously shaken off."
December 12, 2018
Unlike my fellow Goodreads members, I truly enjoyed this book.
How can anyone find fault with a memoir? This was Cree LaFavour's truth as she remembered it. I believe she suffered from mental illness and regardless of privilege, she has a story that is worth reading.
I believe she was in love with her psychiatrist but I'm curious whether her eventual marriage remained intact. I re-read the last few chapters to try and make sense of the relationship but I wasn't satisfied that it was what she really wanted.
How can anyone find fault with a memoir? This was Cree LaFavour's truth as she remembered it. I believe she suffered from mental illness and regardless of privilege, she has a story that is worth reading.
I believe she was in love with her psychiatrist but I'm curious whether her eventual marriage remained intact. I re-read the last few chapters to try and make sense of the relationship but I wasn't satisfied that it was what she really wanted.
March 26, 2022
I struggled with the first half of the book, however, the struggle came from how uncomfortable the book and the words made me. It led me often to questioning myself and some of the actions I make in my own life with my own mental illness.
Cree LeFavour writes with an honesty that astounds me. The simplistic way she'll phrase something deep and meaningful often catches me off guard.
I went into this expecting drama and I got it, and more. A really solid read that had me struggling to put the book down for the entire second half.
Cree LeFavour writes with an honesty that astounds me. The simplistic way she'll phrase something deep and meaningful often catches me off guard.
I went into this expecting drama and I got it, and more. A really solid read that had me struggling to put the book down for the entire second half.
April 23, 2022
LeFavour's memoir is a compelling look at a young woman's troubled search for happiness and satisfaction; her inappropriate attachment with her psychiatrist; the reckoning with her troubled childhood with indifferent parents who abandoned her and her sister to basically raise themselves, adrift in an Idaho ski town. Beautifully written, the prose is as captivating as the content.
September 2, 2017
It's a an odd things to rate a memoir of such a vulnerable nature. She writes well, but the content, for me, was slogging through some dense matter. I wish I had gotten to read more about how she handles her compulsions after she's met her husband.
September 16, 2017
It started out as a 4 star but went down to a 2 star. I found it interesting that her mental state went down once she started to see a psychiatrist. She is lucky Dwight came into her life and see stopped seeing Dr.Kohl.
December 24, 2018
Rounding up to 4 stars even though I skipped through the second half a bit. I was interested in her background and upbringing but parts of it came off as really spoiled. But, to be expected. I saw a lot of dissociative flags in this for sure.
September 4, 2020
This read like personal venting, best left written in a personal journal and burned. As Fran Lebowitz is quoted to have said, “Your life story would not make a good book. Don’t even try.” It reeks of self-obsession, spite, and bitterness.
September 29, 2017
Such a brave memoir. Loved it!
December 18, 2017
Did I identify with it? Not really. Was it an interesting read? Yes.
3.5/5
3.5/5
February 19, 2019
A very detailed and repetitive description of counseling, from one individual's viewpoint.
March 17, 2020
Eh. The writing was very factual, not something you typically get with a memoir/fiction novel. Almost DNFd multiple times
October 13, 2020
Odd mixture of rawness and over-intellectualization.
May 23, 2021
3.5. Audible
December 31, 2021
God did I hate this book but I stuck with it til the end. I can't remember how long ago I read it.
January 3, 2022
Compelling, but repetitive
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews