Title: So Sad Today
Author: Melissa Broder http://www.melissabroder.com/
Synopsis: So Sad Today is a collection of personal essays written by Melissa Broder, detailing her life with anxiety, depression, panic disorder, an eating disorder, and addiction. In each essay (which are technically their own stories but strung together intentionally to paint a larger arc of her life), she discusses a specific topic or time period and how her mental illness played a role. The essays range from sexting, to barf, to being diagnosed with depression, to being addicted to the internet, to marriage, to chronic illness, and a whole lot more. The essays are extremely honest and all in the personal-narrative style. Although the essays are not in any chronological or specific order, you still feel like you get to know Broder more and more with each passing chapter. The book is based on Broder’s initially anonymous twitter handle @sosadtoday, and the essays are sort of like really long tweets: random, sometimes funny, specific, and awesome to read.
Why I liked this book: This book made me super uncomfortable, but that is definitely part of why I liked it. Broder talks about mental illness unabashedly, and while reading the book I had a constant feeling of wow, someone else feels like that too? I think Broder’s writing is really brave, and that is the main reason I enjoyed this collection of essays. She never shies away from topics (i.e. a vomiting fetish?). She mixes in different writing styles to make the book even more interesting (one chapter is in the form of a google chat conversation with her higher self, and another is just her answers to an online quiz that determines whether or not you are addicted to the internet). Her writing is funny, honest, serious, sad, and poetic all at the same time. If you are someone who has friends or loved ones with mental illnesses, read this book. A lot of your peers with mental illnesses are probably wishing they could express even half the things that Broder does. If you are someone who has a mental illness, definitely read this book, because it feels like you meet a new friend by the end. And I think everyone in the world either has mental illness or knows someone who does, so yeah, everyone should read this book.
Powerful passage: “It’s weird, you can be ‘so sad today’ and still be scared of judgement. Like, how much mental illness is ‘acceptable’ and how much is going to be ‘too much’? Someone DMs me, ‘We convince ourselves that we can own the identity of the anxious or depressed person. Then it sneaks up again.’ It’s like, I got this. Then the mental illness is like, No, I’ve got you” (page 132).
Things to keep in mind: This book details an eating disorder, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, chronic illness, and addiction.
Link: https://www.kizzysbooksandmore.com/book/9781455562725
My Fast 