As a person who suffers with mental health issues – severe depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, self-harm – I feel the need to tell you that your book needs trigger warnings at the beginning of the book. The subject matter is extremely heavy and if I knew what the book was about, I honestly would have passed on it because mentally, I can’t handle stories like this and rely on content warnings before I read any book with heavy topics.

But, as someone with mental health issues – all of which I share with the main character, Alex – I want to comment that the descriptions of this awful condition were dead on. I was crying through the whole book and understood everything that Alex was saying to the reader/was feeling personally. The story showed what a person with depression/anxiety/PTSD/mental health issues go through and their thought process. That was dead-on.

I can’t say I enjoyed this novel in the typical sense because it depressed me very badly. What I did enjoy were the accurate portrayal of mental health, how therapist do act (very accurate, I’ve had many therapists like the one Alex tried to go through), the medical jargon/scenes were accurate (from the first aid classes I took in college), and the story had an unsettling and almost desperate feel that made you on edge/kept you at the edge of your seat.

I enjoyed this book; it was different from most books available in the market at the moment. I would definitely recommend a stronger moral in the end, to push the reader to be kinder or at least think strongly about the struggles of mental health.

I did notice that there is a bit of name repetition at the start of sentences, to denotate who is thinking/talking/etc. I believe this could be changed to improve the book further.

At times the explanations are also slightly too detailed, which is good for certain readers, but most would be able to follow the plot without that level of detail. Due to this I would recommend editing/proofreading to ensure the book is as good as possible before publishing.