This was the June pick for my in-person book club.

This book follows our protagonist, Martha, as she navigates life as an adult with an undiagnosed mental illness that began affecting her in her teens. The author examines the influence a person’s mental health can have on how they see themselves and the ripple effect it has on those around them.

As you can see from my rating, this book was not for me. I also think it wasn’t the right time for me to read this book and that caused me to miss some of the nuance I may have otherwise picked up on. Martha is an extremely unlikable character and unreliable narrator. Having an unlikeable protagonist is not a dealbreaker for me, but in this case, it made it a slog to get through this book. Yes, Martha has a mental illness, but Martha also seems to knowingly treat everyone around her quite horribly. Having said that, she is an unreliable narrator so that may not be entirely true. I have seen this book called humorous, and I find it hard to agree with that. There are some funny dry-British-humour-type oneliners, but because of the way the rest of the book reads, I found myself reading them and it taking a beat to register with me that the line I just read was supposed to be funny. Overall, this book just wasn’t for me.