Your Voice in My Head: A Memoir

by Emma Forrest

Emma Forrest, a British journalist, was just twenty-two and living the fast life in New York City when she realized that her quirks had gone beyond eccentricity. In a cycle of loneliness, damaging relationships, and destructive behavior, she found herself in the chair of a slim, balding, and effortlessly optimistic psychiatrist—a man whose wisdom and humanity would wrench her from the dangerous tide after she tried to end her life. She was on the brink of drowning, but she was still working, still exploring, still writing, and she had also fallen deeply in love. One day, when Emma called to make an appointment with her psychiatrist, she found no one there. He had died, shockingly, at the age of fifty-three, leaving behind a young family. Reeling from the premature death of a man who had become her anchor after she turned up on his doorstep, she was adrift. And when her all-consuming romantic relationship also fell apart, Emma was forced to cling to the page for survival and regain her footing on her own terms.
   A modern-day fairy tale, Your Voice in My Head is a stunning memoir, clear-eyed and shot through with wit. In her unique voice, Emma Forrest explores the highs and lows of love and the heartbreak of loss.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Mental Health, Psychology, Biography, Mental Illness, Book Club

215 pages, Hardcover

First published January 17, 2011

About the author

Emma Forrest is a British-American journalist, novelist and screenwriter. She currently resides in Los Angeles, CA.

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Narcissist using eating disorders, self-harming and celebrity chasing to get her fill of attention.

This is a very disturbing book, and I actually regret reading it. The fact that it is a memoir made me want to feel sympathy for the author, I wanted to like her and commiserate with her issues. But Emma Forrest is so self-centred, so absorbed by her own looks and her own drama, that it is literally impossible to feel anything but disgust.

The way she describes bulimia is almost a caricature of a narcissist's need to show off rather than an authentic account of what goes on in a person who actually suffers from the severe anxiety and self-loathing that comes from dealing with that disorder. And when she cuts herself, it always is on full display, bloody and obvious, between namedropping all the celebrities she meets and engages with to boost her confidence.

The memoir could have been written in three sentences:

I engage in self-harming behaviour, partly because I am suffering and partly because it feeds my sense of importance.
I had a shrink who died, and I felt betrayed he didn't tell me that he had terminal cancer.
I dated a famous movie star and that is something everybody in the whole world should know, because it defines my whole universe. Famous-by-proxy!

Don't read this if you have any firsthand experience of the disorders she mentions: it will give you a very lopsided idea of what is going on and why, and you might feel more than slightly nauseous.
Don't read this if you are interested in a writing style that is coherent and makes sense and follows some kind of inner logic.

Read this if you enjoy reading on the maturity level of a 15-year-old girl's diary as written by a grownup woman of 30+.

Read this if you think it is amazing that Emma Forrest interviewed Brad Pitt, talked to Susan Sarandon, lived in a house that Heath Ledger had inhabited before her, and of course, that she dated Colin Farrell for a year and an unnamed "most important playwright of our times" as well.

[Valentina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh Lordy. This book should be retitled: Your Voice In My Head: a Humblebrag in 224 pages.

Allow me to paraphrase...
I am so messed up, it almost obscures how precocious and brilliant I am. I am full of self-loathing and body image issues in spite of being a beautiful, fashionable waif. I have terrible taste in men - the movie stars, über talented writers, and poetic souls i date are all gorgeous (and tall!) but totally wrong for me. My amazing, eccentric, perfect family are stuck with me and my mental illness, but they never complain because between suicide attempts we get along like a house on fire, and they really dig my famous gorgeous boyfriends.

Seriously. That's basically the whole book. Oh yeah, there's the stuff about her shrink too. Which would have been kinda touching if it wasn't also kinda squicky. The book is dedicated to her therapist's widow and two sons, which made me super cringe-y every time she dropped some lurid detail. I mean, it's bad enough to lose your husband/dad, but then one of his patients has to memorialize him with graphic details about her sex life. And Colin Farrell's sex life. That has got to be a little weird.

And don't get me started on how my head exploded every time she described herself as middle class or complained about her lack of health insurance. While she was living in the West Village! And dating movie stars. Blergh. I mean, maybe move to New Jersey and spring for the good healthcare. Sigh.

[Anthi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm trying to find ways to describe this book but it's a difficult task because my mind is overwhelmed... in a good way. Emma Forrest is a charismatic and gifted writer, she's also a bipolar. At the age of 16 she was a columnist in The Sunday Times and by the age of 21 a contributor to the Guardian. And then to Vogue and Vanity Fair and The Independent. She interviewed rock bands, writers and Hollywood stars (even dated A-list actors and famous writers). She also published 3 books at that time, all acclaimed. Then she sold a screenplay to Brad Pitt's production company, Plan B. In her early 20's she moved to Manhattan and a few years later to Hollywood.

Sounds like a charming life doesn't it? Emma seems blessed with talent and good fortune, but she's also cursed with manic-depression, a chronic cutter and bulimic with serious self-destruct tendencies. During her stay in NY she had an unsuccessful suicide attempt. That's the time she meets Dr. R, a well-rounded, good-hearted and eternally optimistic psychiatrist that helps her fight and cope with this disease. When Emma moved to California she continued having phone sessions with him and felt she was getting stronger. But then Dr R died unexpectantly of lung cancer -none of his patients knew he was sick- while Emma was already living in L.A. And a few months later the man she thinks is the love of her life, her Gypsy Husband as she calls him and a big Hollywood star (just google it if you're a gossip hungry bitch - I know I am!) breaks up with her and she's left to deal alone with heart ache and loss.

This memoir is as much an account of her struggles in the deep, dark, cold waters of depression as it is a tribute to the doctor who helped her and in a way became a father figure and an anchor (as was her knit-tight family) during her gloomiest moments.

This is not a self-help book, it does not dwell in Oprah-territory, Forrest doesn't offer advice or cope-mechanisms. And if it seems self-obssessed at times, well...isn't an autobiography by definition self-centered? Emma does what most seasoned writers always give as an advice to new ones: "write what you know best". And in our limited view of the world, do we know anything better than ourselves? Even when we aren't being honest about it?

Descending into the mind of a manic-depressive person is a bumpy ride, but Forrest has wheave her magic with her spartan and simultaneously lush prose. The result is (sorry in advance for the abundance of adjectives, but I can't describe it any better) irreverent, funny, witty, sarcastic, insightful, frank, heart-breaking, hilarious, raw, self-deprecating, gut-wrenching, brave and cathartic.

Her narration isn't linear, she jumps here and there, back and fro in time and space and is inderspersed with her thoughts. Like seeing a surreal impressionistic painting and yes I know these were different movements in Art, but that's the picture she created in my mind.

It's been a long time since a book made me go through an emotional roller-coaster, I cried and laughed so many times that I can't remember! And there are so many quotes and passages I loved that I would probably need to write half the book down. Instead I'll close my review with only one passage:

"Dr. R scratches out a note on his pad.
"Losing you both was only the practice pain, wasn't it? For my mum and dad..."
He puts his finger on his lips, his elbow at his chest, not racked with cancer. "Yes."
"And when that happens, this will seem like nothing."
He nods.
"When it happens," he asks me, "what will you get you through?"
"Friends who love me."
"And if your friends weren't there?"
"Music through headphones."
"And if the music stopped?"
"A sermon by Rabbi Wolpe."
"If there was no religion?"
"The mountains and the sky."
"If you leave California?"
"Numbered streets to keep me walking."
"If New York falls into the ocean?"
Your voice in my head.

[Isabel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointing. There's the famous writer who is more gifted than anyone of our generation (whatever that means), the movie star who was her soul mate until he wasn't and a handful of other more forgettable beaus. There are a few oddly placed pop culture references. Forrest comes across as an attention seeker, seemingly more driven to convince us all of her desirability to famous, gifted men than anything else. There were a few passages which were quite moving about her struggles but the emphasis on her relationships, in particular her relatively short relationship with the actor Colin Farrell (coyly called Gypsy Husband) come across as superficial and childish. The whole thing seems to be out of focus. A decades long relationship with the man she claims saved her life is almost entirely eclipsed by a year long romance with a movie star. There are many more details about the relationship with the movie star than there are about her work with the doctor or any meaningful sharing of her struggles with anything other than breaking up with men. I also found much of what she wrote about Farrell to be unnecessarily exploitative. The pain of a break-up as part of the story is one thing but this really feels much more like a kiss and tell than anything I've ever read.

Readers looking for a memoir about surviving mental illness or even a tribute to a gifted doctor will likely be disappointed. I was.

[christa · Rating 3 out of 5]

My boyfriend had a writing professor in college who said: "Don't write about your dead grandma because I don't want to give you a D on a story about your dead grandma."

I should maybe alter that to: "Don't read memoirs with mentally ill protagonists because I don't want to give someone a D on a story about suicide attempts, cutting and bulimia." Especially not someone who has already been pummeled with toxic internet sledge by Colin Ferrell fanatics who found her too fat, too ugly to be the actor's girlfriend in the latter part of the 2000s.

Emma Forrest's memoir "The Sound of Your Voice in my Head" is billed as a love letter to Dr. R, the therapist who, for the most part, kept her off the ledge and helped her cope with life-long demons that were pushing her to end it all. It is also about those demons. But mostly it is about her relationship with a character she calls GH ("Gypsy Husband"), who is, according to the giant decoder ring in the sky, that easy-on-the-eyes, hard-on-the-heart actor Colin Ferrell -- with whom she she was in a relationship for somewhere between six months and a year. Dr. R dies in a way that is sudden to his patients -- he hadn't told them about the lung cancer -- right around the same time that GH tells Emma he needs space and that, oh yeah, the baby they had planned on making, Pearl, is going to be a no-go.

Emma Forest's story starts with Ophelia, the painting she regularly visits at the Tate in London. She's a teen-aged girl sitting in front of it weeping. Scanning the background of the painting by Millais for a super secret man in the bushes who will emerge and save the woman in the water. This is an easy metaphor: Our protagonist will spend the rest of the book looking for a dude in the bushes to save her.

She's young, but already a rock journalist and novelist, when she moves to New York City, which seems to pull her issues to surface level in a way that her mother likens to a fever breaking. There is bulimia and there are instances of cutting that are coaxed along by a boyfriend who shares this predilection and spends time with her in the bathroom and in bed carving into her flesh. She lands in Dr. R's care, which is immediately followed by a suicide attempt which is followed by a more earnest attempt at healing.

The second half of the book is GH-heavy. This long distance, text heavy relationship that had Mr. H sending her gifts from location, including a worn T-shirt with a poem written on it. They are talking through the building of a life together, despite the negative online critiques she is receiving from the kind of people who post anonymous comments on celeb gossip websites.

The writing is nice. Sometimes even funny. The story is interesting in that way that all stories about being one fistful of pills and a warm bath from a funeral dirge are interesting -- but also quite similar to everything that is shelved around it.

The protagonist, however, is a little hard to take. She never misses a moment to point out a chance meeting with an unnamed famous writer, a named famous former White House intern, or the story about the time she told Brad Pitt before interviewing him that her boyfriend was way hotter than him.

During a session with Dr. R, Forrest mentions the band Coldplay.
"OK. Fine. You're seeing one of them?" He asks.
"Hell NO! Jesus, Dr. R! Why do you assume that?"
"Track record."

(Barf). I've spent a lot of time this past week thinking about what it is about namedropping that is so insufferable and have come up with this: It isn't, per se. It is when there is a feeling that the namedropper is using the roster of Page Sixers to somehow validate her story. In post-publication interviews Forrest has said things like: It's not necessarily Colin Ferrell that I'm writing about. I date a lot of movie stars.

Forrest is a good writer, descriptive and thoughtful. Sometimes even funny. At one point she writes about a random man she is diddling:

"The cat rescuer comes back for me, once, twice. We don't know each other's number, he just appears. Each time I am caught unawares and wearing something more schlumpy, bizarre and unflattering than the last. Like I have on a poncho and worms are coming out of my eyes and one of my arms is made out of Dudley Moore."

Dudley Moore. But she shoots herself in the foot by leaning too hard on the tell-all side of the story. The I'm hanging out with a famous writer and we are writing together in this cabin and he's downstairs and I'm downstairs and he's famous and I'm singing and he comes upstairs and tells me to stop singing so loudly ... moments that she can't resist finding a way to drop into her story. I'd love to see something written by her -- and maybe this exists, but I doubt it -- that doesn't include a lick of her own life.

[Alexis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dear Sweet Jesus. This book was a car wreck. I gave it two stars because I literally couldn't stop reading it, even though I wanted to. Emma Forrest is a journalist who writes about celebrity. She's also bipolar, and cuts herself. In this book, she writes about her suicide attempts, numerous boyfriends and the death of her therapist. She also gets into a serious relationship with Colin Farrell, who she calls her Gypsy Husband.

One of the messages that I learned from this book is that I should never ever date Colin Farrell. Lesson learned!

Read this book if you want to feel sane. I am very, very healthy and happy in comparison.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one case where I wish we could give ratings in half-star increments - three stars is too much, two too little.

I'm attracted to memoirs. I'm intrigued by mental illness, it's debilitation and it's manifestation: namely, addiction. In the case of this book, said addiction is self-injury and bulimia. It seems Emma's (to call her 'the author' is too academic; 'Ms. Forrest' too austere) initial intention is to chronicle her battle with these compulsions, along with a touching homage to her late therapist, Dr. R, to whom she gives almost exclusive credit for helping her conquer her mania. Got it. Ready for it. Go.

I will admit, roughly the first half of the book had me hooked. Though it seems many other readers were not enamored with Emma's writing style, I liked it: as a whole I found it casual enough to invite but not insult, while many passages wooed me with voice and language complex enough to impress, but not patronize. In terms of a writing opinion, I enjoyed Emma's tone and would read more of her work.

However, the content quickly became an issue. While I can appreciate the tragedy of loving & losing - who can't? - that's not why this book piqued my interest. And while I'm as interested in celebrity encounters as the next person - I quickly sour from namedropping. Combine the two, and you have a great majority of this memoir: brief, ineffectual exchanges with local actors and musicians, and a tumultuous but tiresome love affair with a dashing, surreptitiously nicknamed actor. I was hoping for a dissection of depression, or of cutting, or of bulimia, or of mania. I was hoping for an overview of therapy, or an analysis of Emma's specific relationship to Dr. R. I even hoped there might be a glimpses on writing itself & it's involvement with depression. These components were depressingly absent.

Ultimately, I was compelled by her struggles but quickly alienated by the stories she chose to tell. Her bipolar disorder never throws her writing or success into question - by her account, she remains wildly successful throughout the majority of the book. Her cutting is stark and severe, but she never discusses how it helps her, or why it is her recourse; similarly, her bulimia quietly fades into nothingness. What I DID learn, however, is that Colin Farrell text messages a lot, may or may not have some neurosis of his own, and at one point purchased a cute baby coat for a baby that didn't yet exist. This is a book about a woman's struggles, and while she's absolutely free to write about whatever she wishes - I almost feel manipulated, as if she used her mania as a cloak in order to pen a kiss and tell.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Emma Forrest has a way with conducting a story. Her talent shines as she weaves her memoir into a tale that reads like fiction, yet presents constant reflection--almost as a third party--to her experiences, doing so in a charming and funny, yet heartfelt and honest way. I laughed, I cried a bit, commiserated tons, and just faced the fucking facts: We all have our struggles and living is the hard part; but perseverance is always a path awaiting our pursuit, if we choose it. I think this also sums up the brilliance of Emma's writing abilities. Though many people reading this may be unable to understand exactly the madness and struggle and pain a person with such mental illness experiences, she managed to bring recognition to the common griefs we share throughout life as human beings, and bridged a connection we all could share in some how.

Emma Forrest, talented English writer, has been suffering from mental illness since her early teens. She's Bipolar--the most sever form of manic-depression. Your Voice in My Head is mostly a tribute to the person she credits with saving her life, Dr. R, her psychiatrist whom she met in NY a couple weeks before trying to commit suicide in her early 20s. Dr. R died abruptly (to her, because she didn't know he was sick) from cancer complications in May 2008. This memoir served as a way to honor him for his efforts in helping her on her journey to wellness, including accounts of her deepest times of despair and struggles with the dark days, as well an endeavor to remember his guidance in order to help her charter the dark waters she now faces in her present without his counsel...a means of self-preservation without her life preserver if you will, as the battle to live--for her--is a revisiting struggle she wears like a garment of clothing.

I imagined writing Your Voice in My Head was also something Emma undertook to help her cope with his absence in her life. The retelling basically synchronizes their time together and how his counsel has led to her getting healthy.

I hope that she keeps living her life, writing, and experiencing new things that make her happy. I hope one day she will indeed make love last and come to know her true Gypsy Husband. And I most certainly hope that Dr., R will always be a comforting voice, a voice of reason, in her head.

Thank you for sharing your story, Emma.

[Saloma Furlong · Rating 1 out of 5]

Of all the good memoirs out there that never make it into print, how in the world did this one make it? I skimmed it because I wanted in the worst way for Emma to face up to the truth... to find her Self. To do so, she would have had to face the underlying reason for her self-destructive behavior in the form of cutting, bulimia, promiscuity, suicide attempts. And that is not to mention losing her Self in every relationship and then being completely bereft when he leaves her. The one moment... just the one... is what kept me reading the book, to give her every chance to come clean with her Self, her counselor, her parents, and her readers. It is the moment when she is confronted with the knowledge that her cutting could be a sign of abuse in her childhood. She steers around that, and has herself believing it all started when she was sixteen when she was raped. I am not a counselor, but I know the signs all too well. She is a classic example of someone who identifies with the perpetrator. I, too, endured childhood abuse. I, too, developed bulimia. I know all too well how painful the healing process can be. But at some point, I faced that pain and I steered through it, not around. Thank goodness... I could have been stuck in this kind of insanity the rest of my life.

If you want to get pulled into Emma Forrest's insanity, read this book. Otherwise spare yourself this and read a book that doesn't leave you feeling like you've just wasted your time.

[Michelle Curie · Rating 1 out of 5]

For a second I thought about giving this book a higher rating, because man, it's a memoir and I feel like I am judging someone else's life here and who am I to do so? I believe there are books that need to be written and Emma Forrest probably needed to write this book, but I did not need to read it.



Emma Forrest is an English journalist and screenwriter, who has been published by numerous magazines, she has interviewed many reputable people (and even dated some). Her biography reads like a fairytale, but she's also been diagnosed with a borderline personality and has experienced bulimia and self-harming behavior. In this book she writes about the death of her psychiatrist and her subsequent break-up with her partner (aka Colin Farrell, as I found out later).


Forrest has a distinctive writing style, which unfortunately, isn't for me. She makes use of a very visual language, but sometimes I wondered if she just wrote something because of the way it sounded and less because of the meaning behind it. [The coffee shop] Magnolia has coffee like muddy tears" or "Bulimia is the wicked twin of orgasm" for example, what does that even mean?

Her narration is very jumpy, which made the writing feel somehow disorganized and like a ramble to me. Somehow the book made me think of those people who'll fill every gap in a conversation with words, out of fear the silence that would otherwise follow will be awkward. Like, she typed up an entire conversation in which her mom tells her how she disliked a cat she saw, because it looked like a snake. The pointe of the story was that it actually might have been a snake.

"Right now you're depressed about one thing. Before you were depressed about everything. These are good times for you, Emma."

Forrest is very self-involved, which you probably can't blame her for, after all, she is telling her story. It's not a self-help book in any way, she doesn't offer solutions or advise at any point. It's bold and brave, yet that leads me to think that this is a book that didn't need to be published. As this book has gotten some positive reviews, people seem to disagree, but I would have thought that there is nothing to gain from reading this story. I'm left wondering why she wanted to share this with people.

[Jessica J. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Apparently, I am not hip enough to have known that Emma Forrest is somewhat, perhaps vaguely, known as a music journalist and brief love interest of Colin Farrel. I just noticed her memoir, randomly, at a bookstore a while back and thought it sounded like it had a lot of potential to be touching.

This book is essentially a love letter to Emma's therapist, Dr. R, who passed away without revealing to his patients that he had been fighting lung cancer. For Forrest, and almost certainly his other patients, the result is a sudden, traumatic loss of the calming force that's kept her steady for eight years. She is still sorting through her feelings of grief when her boyfriend (though he remains unnamed, we are supposed to safely assume that it's Colin) breaks it off.

I waffled for a long time about how to rate this book. There's an element to Forrest's style that I really appreciated. She has a lot of insight, and can be very witty and direct in her exploration of very difficult subjects like self-harm and suicide attempts.

The thing that bothered me, though, is that I could never quite shake a lack of genuineness or authenticity in her tone. There's a lot of unnecessary namedropping here -- brief chance encounters with Garry Shandling, Gloria Steinem and Susan Sarandon are given a significance that I suspect would have been overlooked if it weren't for the minor twinge of celebrity involved. Forrest also references her journalism career in a way that irritated me. Oftentimes, in the memoirs that resonate most with me, success in a public sphere that does not directly contribute to the meat of the memoir is made vague: I went to a movie premiere, I was writing a book, and so on without identifying anything specific. Instead, Forrest made references to "a cover story on Brad Pitt that I wrote for Vogue" that felt a little too braggy. The fact that she was writing about Brad Pitt for a Vogue cover story didn't really contribute anything to her story, and erased any notion of humility that I come to appreciate from anyone who's willing to write such a personally turbulent memoir.

[Valentina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished reading this memoir. I received it from NetGalley and have been unable to put it down since I started it.
This is an honest book. If you’re looking for powdered-sugar lies, then this is not the right book to read. If, like a large number of us, you have suffered through major depression or manic depression, this is a must read.
Ms. Forrest writes beautifully, there’s no denying that, but it’s not the beauty of her phrases that captivate the mind, but the spine of truth that allows each sentence to reach that deeper goal: understanding. I found myself nodding to her words in open-hearted agreement.
Now, it is not all fabulous. The relationship with GH (Gypsy Husband) drags on for too long, taking precedence over anything and everything, so that Forrest does not touch base with us. I yawned through yet another description of GH’s sensitivity, his tender whispers, his deep text messages. Eh. Did not do it for me. The relationship with her psychiatrist fares much better. Dr. R becomes a real person in our eyes not just some teenage fantasy.
Once she takes the focus off this relationship that consumed her writing as much as her life, she shines once again. The last few pages are glorious, and I do not use that term lightly.
This book is on my list of favorite memoirs, go read it and add it to yours.

[Cait S · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to explain what I loved about this book and what I connected with in it, but I'm not sure that I can.

I can say that I've been struggling lately. Despite having friends to talk to and medication to take and a life I shouldn't really complain about... I still struggle. And I can say that in this book I found so much that struck me and resonated with me. I found words that probably weren't meant to be advice but that hit me that way anyway and made me feel better about the things I've been dealing with.

My best friend says sometimes the right book comes along when you need it. That's never been more true for me than it is with this one. I know this isn't really a review because none of that would matter to anyone but me... But I feel genuinely connected to this book and I love it in a way that doesn't allow me to pick it apart in any other way.

[Honey-Squirrel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This memoir is a navel-gazing train wreck of obsession and self-pity from a middle-class product of a tight-knit family. Lacking sufficient external reasons to suffer, the author chooses to become her own worst enemy. Mired in narcissism and committed to self-destructive behavior, Forrest details her cutting rituals and suicide attempts and her dependence on her therapist before building a monument to pain out of a failed romance with bad boy actor Colin Farrell. Such confessional works only serve to promote stereotypes of women as emotionally disturbed creatures with love addictions.

This was another book I reviewed for Elle magazine, which seems to highlight literary wallows and promote memoirs by "victims" more than any other types of nonfiction.

[Fran · Rating 4 out of 5]

A autobiografia de Emma foi um livro que me apareceu de surpresa e despertou toda a minha curiosidade.

O relato da autora, apesar de triste, é doce e divertido de se acompanhar, a leitura flui naturalmente e os capítulos são curtos - o que contribui para ler rapidamente. Durante as passagens é impossível não sentir o que Emma passou durante tantos anos e não se comover, mas de um jeito bom, daqueles que só queremos abraçar a pessoa e dizer que vai ficar tudo bem. É possível acompanhar como ela melhorou e se recuperou das coisas que enfrentou gradativamente, como seu tratamento foi eficaz e como a própria consegue avaliar seus erros e gatilhos sozinha.

Um livro rápido e intenso que vale a pena.

[Frances · Rating 3 out of 5]

At the last few pages, the narrator referenced Jane Eyre, which my copy just came in and is my next book to read.

How timely.

[Sheldon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Your Voice in My Head by Emma Forrest can be very uncomfortable to read, not because it is a memoir about mental illness, depression, mania, cutting, attempted suicide, and death, but because it is a humorous memoir about mental illness, depression, mania, cutting, attempted suicide, and death.

To start, I have a confession to make. I didn't know who Emma Forrest was before reading this book. She's published a few other books, written screenplays, blogs, worked as a journalist, and has been involved in a high-profile Hollywood romance. And yet I didn't know about her before now. So I started reading this book without any foreknowledge of who she is or what she's done.

The book follows the author's journey through being diagnosed with mental illness (more particularly as a manic/depressive) and meeting with a therapist, identified simply as Dr. R, who she credits with saving her life and being an eternal optimist. At one point, she calls his office to make an appointment and gets a machine saying that the office is closed, and then receives an email a couple of weeks later informing her that her therapist had died suddenly. None of his patients knew he was sick and was fighting lung cancer for several months. The book is sprinkled with short testimonials from Dr. R's other patients about what he did for them or their relationship with him (these patients are not identified except for a first name or an initial to maintain confidentiality, as Dr. R is said to have had some high-profile patients).

Emma Forrest could be described as a serial dater, at least by her descriptions of her relationships in this book. During her dating trials, she settles into a relationship with a man she refers to only as her “Gypsy Husband,” or GH, who is a popular actor and celebrity. He is never actually named otherwise in the book, but it's fairly obvious who it is, and you can find out who through a quick internet search. This relationship does not last, and is dealt with as one of the most heartbreaking moments in her life because they had been planning a family and they truly seemed to love each other. Be warned that this is not a tell-all book. Only the emotional parts of the relationship are described in detail, and only for a short time until the break-up. In fact, much more time is spent talking about the aftermath of the break-up than the relationship itself.

The writing style in this book is engrossing, to say the least. At times, it's hard to say what's real, what's artistic license, and what is simply in the author's head. Most of the time, it seems fairly obvious, but at times, I'm not too sure. But it's also extremely disjointed, which may be a symptom of the author's mania. The book is not told in an entirely linear manner, which sometimes gets a little confusing, but not too much so that it takes away from the book.

The voice in the author's head is obviously supposed to be the therapist, to whom the book feels as though it could be written to as a single long letter. However, this sometimes becomes questionable as the author hears several voices in her head, such GH (especially post-breakup) or her parents. It can sometimes be downright scary as the reader genuinely wonders if there really are voices in her head, or if these voices are the same ones that everyone imagines at some point while they think things through.

Even with all of this, the story is generally told in a rather funny style. The author uses side thoughts and quips throughout the narrative that indicates that she has a sense of humor about herself and her own foibles. She's genuinely able to look back and laugh at herself, even at times that seem inappropriate. During these humorous parts, the reader can feel weird or bad by laughing at things that it would be otherwise inappropriate to laugh at if the author hadn't been describing it in a funny way and obviously laughing at it herself, and even then you can feel a little guilty about it. However, the book gets more serious and loses most of the humor near the end, which made the book very uneven. While the author ultimately moves on with her life, it still makes the book end on a down note.

I can definitely say that I liked the book, but I don't know that can say that my feelings extend much beyond that. While the book is humorous and interesting, and it explores aspects of therapy and mental illness that aren't often explored, such as what happens to the patients emotionally when a therapist suddenly dies, it's also very uneven and feels whiny after a while. My sympathies extend to the author for her struggles and for her heartbreak, but it reaches a point where I don't want to read about her self-pity anymore. It feels excessive. Other readers may feel differently, much like how different friends will have different tolerance for their friends' self-pity during hardships. I feel for the author, but my pity can only go so far.

Overall, it's a decent book with interesting aspects, but can get very frustrating at times, especially in the second half after her break-up with GH. It's a personal story told from a unique perspective that deals with the emotion aspects of therapy and relationships and when they go wrong rather than simply the practical side of these events. But the author begins to wallow in self-pity so much that it becomes difficult to get through as you get to the end. This is what I would describe as almost a purely emotional memoir. Most of what we're told is what the author is thinking or feeling, rather than what is going on in the real world. An interesting look inside the head of someone in mental and emotional turmoil, but frustrating, nonetheless.

Your Voice in My Head earns three out of five stars.

Note: A copy of this book was sent to this reviewer for free by the publisher (Other Press) through the Goodreads First Reads program. This did not affect this review in any way.

[Brandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Your Voice in My Head is a memoir about Emma Forrest. Her depression, her recovery, her therapist, her bad relationships, and Colin Farrell. Colin Farrel is a huge part of this book, whether the author intended him to be or not. And she can say she didn't, but I think she did. She spends a lot of time psychoanalyzing why he ended the relationship so abruptly and the type of personality defects he may have that will ensure he does it again. From other parts of the book, I get the feeling that she is a bit obsessed with celebrity culture and it feels not so nice, to me, for her to "anonymously" talk so personally about her famous ex boyfriend. It makes me wonder if her interest in him to begin with wasn't beyond shallow intrigue and her interest in writing about him isn't for the added press. Forrest also spends a lot of time self-deprecating about her body and her beauty, which I should find really annoying, but because of her wonderful writing, I didn't. Her problems seem very middle/upper class to me and not altogether earth shattering, but I understand that something doesn't need to be earth shattering for it to rip a person apart. We are very fragile in that way and I appreciate how open Forrest is about her history with depression. Forrest is a clever writer with the ability to move a book along at an interesting pace. My feelings toward the author's writing style and cleverness are somewhat at odds with the way I feel about her subject matter and how trivial her problems appear sometimes, but still this was a really good read.

[Alex Templeton · Rating 2 out of 5]

As someone who spent five years with an absolutely wonderful therapist in New York, I was intrigued by the premise for this memoir: Emma Forrest would be writing about how her relationship with her therapist had an incredible impact on her, something she realized especially after his untimely and sudden death. Unfortunately, while I believe that Forrest intended to write her book as a tribute to what seems to have been an amazing individual, I don’t feel that she succeeded in that task. To me, the book ended up feeling more like just another addition to the memoir literature about experiencing mental illness, and Forrest’s therapist is only addressed as a figure who is in her orbit as she experiences breakdowns and heartbreaks, rather than one who was a major player in her life. I think that is an error in structure more than anything else. As written, with the therapist way on the sidelines, the book comes off as a diary about Forrest’s experiences with mental illness, and one that is unfortunately often self-indulgent at that. The prose is also somewhat free-associational, which made the connections that I imagine Forrest wanted to make elusive. Still, it’s difficult to leave reading this book without wishing Forrest peace of mind, and other individuals to help her reach it.

[Pamela (Here to Read Books and Chew Gum) · Rating 1 out of 5]

I DNF's this at about 32%. I just noped my way on out of there. The problem with Your Voice in My Head is that it's nothing but a humblebrag, using mental health issues to mask or legitimise the fact that that's all it is. So many reviewers are going to be lenient with it purely because it feels somehow wrong about being critical of a book written in order to bring transparency to our discussions about mental health - but call me cynical, it read like that was a crutch, not the true purpose.

I am self-confessedly not a fan of the autobiography and memoir in general, so I was probably never going to praise it to high heaven, but Your Voice in My Head is almost a text-book example of why I hate the genre. It's self-indulgent, full of name dropping, and wallows in a sense of its own importance.

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love crazy chicks. That's my favorite genre. I especially love crazy chicks who own their crazy, who are like, "I am crazy - hear me roar!" Emma Forrest is one of those girls, and she can write like the dickens when she feels like it. Parts of this book made me sigh with such understanding and other parts made me think, "Holy god, you are batshit."

Basically, she's a depressed, bulimic cutter who dated Colin Farrell, and she manages to make that interesting about 50-percent of the time. That's the major problem with this book. When it's good, it's very, very good, and when it's bad, it's horrid.

[kylajaclyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Memoirs are my favorite genre of book, and I have read a great many of them. And I do generally read memoirs of mental illness and/or addiction. I can promise you that this is one of the better ones on the subject. Emma Forrest writes in a stream-of-consciousness, rather flippant style that I found immediately engaging. I have also struggled with depression and cutting, and I found myself constantly dog-earing pages of this book where certain quotes really spoke to me. I did not go into reading this knowing that Emma cavorted with famous people and that GH is Colin Farrell. But I've always wondered what it's like to date a celebrity of that caliber, and now I know. I'm glad that she gives him a nickname, because I think otherwise readers would have ignored the bigger parts of the story in favor of the juicy gossip on Colin. And while this is the main former relationship of hers that she chronicles, this story is, more importantly, about her late psychiatrist Dr. R. This book is composed of many little beautiful things as well. I love her idiosyncratic parents - they reminded me of the parents in Easy A! Emma's parents read just like that in this book. Also, the mention of Heath Ledger was heartbreaking. Emma runs into him a week before he dies when he is out getting coffee with his daughter. She notices that he looks gray in the face, and she pontificates about an alternate reality where this "magic coffee" keeps him alive instead of perishing one week later. She believes that Dr. R is there with him too where "all the kids got to keep their dads." It is lines like these that make the book sing and rise above the rest.

[Erica]

Emma Forrest was Colin Farrell's gf for a year. So though this memoir is ostensibly about her relationship with her therapist, there's quite a bit of CF in there too (though she gives him a pseudonym.) She could have called this "Cutting and Colin Farrell" and it would have been apt. And yet. I read it in one day, in two two-hour chunks. There were many moments of true, beautiful, glorious writing. And she did a good job of making falling so hard for CF understandable. So this book was really more than the sum of its parts--if you had told me it was about cutting and colin farrell, I might not have read it, but I liked it quite a lot.

[C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chaotic. At turns self-indulgent and sharp. After finishing Your Voice in My Head and perusing the Goodreads reviews, I was fascinated to see how many people found this book wildly off-putting. I think working with my own patients with borderline traits and having no context for the writer (/her celebrity connections) was helpful.

[Patricia · Rating 1 out of 5]

Self-aggrandizing crap. Luckily it’s short.

[Litborne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Note to self: Take care of your mental health.

[Diane Yannick · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is nothing I love more than an honest memoir that explores the thin line between creative genius and insanity. This author gave up any fear of tarnishing her public image and laid out her story, warts and all. It didn't hurt that she can pack a big punch in a short sentence. Emma, currently a talented LA screenwriter, transfixed me with her humor, wisdom and pain.

It was amazing to me how supportive and loving her parents were. Emma's bulimia, cutting, attempted suicide, manic episodes, irrational expectations were all met with love and acceptance. Emma acknowledges their support and presence throughout her writing.

Dr R, her beloved psychiatrist, saved her with his insights, silences and humor. This book felt like a tribute to him and his craft. He listened when it would have been easier to talk. His gentle prodding spirit allowed Emma to figure herself out step by crooked step. His untimely and "unannounced" death completely tipped Emma's world.

Her committed, loving relationship with Colin Farrell, described only as GH, was bewildering.His love for her was obsessive, all consuming. She returned his love in full and they courted with passion, building their own private nest of endearing trust.He said he'd rather die than not have a family with her. He talked of conceiving a daughter Pearl as soon as he returned from shooting a movie. Then he returned to Emma, who expected a life with him, and said, "I need space." Nothing more, ever. No closure, no later explanations, just married someone else and moved on. Emma is relatively kind with her words about him; me, not so much.

[Kate O'Hanlon · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was 15 I started reading every book about unhinged, self harming and/or eating disordered young women I could find. Once of them was Emma Forrest's second novel Thin Skin. I checked it out of the library a dozen times before buying a copy, which is still, well thumbed, on my bookshelf. All this is by way of saying that it's hard to evaluate Your Voice in My Head objectively.

A lot of the book will seem very familiar to anyone who's read Thin Skin, the main character Ruby was obviously based heavily on Forrest's own experience. But while Thin Skin's chief failing was a its ending when post-suicide attempt Ruby seems to have a renewed optimism about her life for no apparent reason Your Voice in My Head takes us beyond that point to the necessary work of trying to get better properly.

Forrest is by turns both self-deprecating and self-indulgent. I imagine that some readers will find this irritating but I find it quite charming.

I'm not sure why she bothered concealing Colin Farrell's identity. Maybe it was an attempt to be classy. I suppose it was somewhat successful.

[Josefine · Rating 3 out of 5]

After having a somewhat crappy day yesterday, I read this book last night in one go. It's not that long, but by the time I was finished (and I really wanted to read it in one sitting) it was past 1am. Good thing I don't have to be anywhere this morning.

Anyway. Reading books in one sitting is always more intense than reading bits and pieces over several days with countless breaks inbetween, and it fits the story. I'm not sure if I'd really gone back to it, had I decided to put it down and turn out the lights instead, but reading it like this, alone in my bed in the dark, it had quite the kathartic effect. Sometimes it happens to me that I get so involved in a story - whether its written or on film - and when it's over it feels like there's a weight off my soul, as if I'd gone through everything the character I connected to (in this case quite obviously the first person narrator) by proxy and the Greeks were right, katharsis is a good thing.

As for the book itself... I have to say the tenses used were bothering me a little, as was the fact that it always seemed to be about men. Nonetheless it pulled me in and held me there, or I wouldn't have read it so quickly.

[Penny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I devoured this book from beginning to end. Before reading this I knew nothing about Emma Forrest. I didn't know that she wrote a column for The Sunday Times when she was only a teenager or that she had a high profile relationship with a famous actor that left her broken hearted. I knew nothing of these things and yet I was so immersed in reading about her life that I found myself googling things to see if I could figure out who "Gypsy Husband" was, or even "Loom" or "Christopher" or "Simon" (no luck with those last three...).

The book is written in such a way that it almost feels like you're reading a story and there were a few times where I laughed out loud or snickered and other times where I felt the poignancy of her words. I also may have fallen in love a little bit with her Dr. R, whoever he is. It makes me hopeful and glad to know that there are people like him in the world.