I feel so bad giving this a negative review but I have no choice.
This is not a book for everyone and I think you need to be mentally strong to handle the content

Such a relatable read, very moving and honest. I found this very hard to put down. We all have to sadly deal with grief at some point in our lives and helps to understand that its good to talk.

Relatable and funny in places in a sad sort of way. I wish I had this book three years ago when my dad died. Brilliant - and one I think I will return to over and over again

Ultimately this is a good book, but HEAVY, so be warned before you go into it and look at the subject matter.
Focusing on the author's grief since her boyfriend's death many parts of this were heartwrenching and told from, what I consider to be a real interpretation of that grief is like.

My thanks to NetGalley and Thread books publishing for the opportunity to review this book.
It’s an honest insight into the behaviour and mindset of the author after the tragic suicide of her boyfriend.
As a reader you can see both the self destruction and neediness quotient so at times your not sure if you want to hug her or slap her shouting can you not see what you’re doing.
Thank goodness the book provides a light at the end of the tunnel.
This may be a therapeutic read for anyone who unfortunately can empathise.

as someone who has dealt with a relatively large amount of death in their lives and also thinks about death constantly i had to read/listen to this with one eye closed, feeling all of it too much. it started strong and lost its way a little bit but still a very frank and needed book covering grief and life after

Based on the title, I was expecting a book that focussed on grief and getting past it. The first third of the book is definitely this, but then the book is more about Tiffany and her business. I lost interest when it went towards this topic. I had a lot of sympathy for the author and was able to connect with her for the first part but quickly lost interest towards the end.

Grief is universal, yet no two people experience it the same way. When Tiffany Philippou’s boyfriend Richard died by suicide while they were both at university, her life was turned upside down. But Philippou kept insisting that she was totally fine. The truth is that her grief was intertwined with shame, a shame Philippou did not know how to handle.

University and partying go hand in hand, so masking her true feelings wasn’t too difficult even from people who knew Richard and were also grieving. Once she finished university, Philippou threw herself into the world of start-ups. Working ridiculously long hours was another way of hiding from her feelings. As was not speaking about Richard with her colleagues. Eventually, Philippou moves to New York for a fresh start. 

You cannot outrun grief. And shame that is untended will fester until you have no choice but to confront it. 

At times Totally Fine (And Other Lies I’ve Told Myself) feels disjointed, which for me felt like an accurate representation of the messiness of grief but I can understand why it could detract from the reading experience for other people.

This is a brave story highlighting the stigma surrounding mental health, following the author's own experience of trying to live with her boyfriend's suicide.

The subject matter is obviously incredibly challenging and the author goes into a lot of detail about the decade she spends
trying to cope by lurching from one extreme to another, before finally seeking the professional help she has been avoiding. If you are able to face it, this book might provide reassurance that you are not alone in how you are feeling. But the main takeaway is not to hesitate or be ashamed of seeking professional help for mental health issues.

You can call the Samaritans free on 116 123

There is lots of further information on their website https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/

I really enjoyed this honest memoir. I found myself tearing through the pages. I thought it tackled a subject we don't offer read about - suicide - in an insightful way.

Totally fine explores the aftermath of grief after losing someone you love, the processes and getting to the other side of life. Living purposefully and loving life
This book felt like i was catching up with a friend about parts of life not everyone knows about
I really enjoyed reading this book and would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for their next read or going through grief and feel like no one understands the process

I'm always drawn to a good memoir- so when the publisher invited me to read this one, I was looking forward to it. Unfortunately, I never found myself really enjoying or connecting with this book. Philippou's memoir begins with the event that she largely defines her life by - her college boyfriend, at 20, kills himself. The book largely covers her drinking and bottling up emotions for the next decade. It's also the story of her career - and very little of her family life.

I think that I expected this to be a bit more of a humorous take on grief to provide some balance with the sadness. And those expectations definitely colored my overall view of this one. Honestly, I feel a bit cruel even writing down what I think of this one because it is such a deeply personal story. While I do feel like I know the author after finishing this, it largely feels like I got to know her by reading her diary - or a reconstructed diary from her own review of her social media and texting accounts, since the sheer volume of alcohol consumed means she wasn't exactly making her own memories. While I have read other memoirs of alcoholics that do seem to invite the reader to at the very least want to grab a drink with them or be at the same bar, I cannot say the same here. She claims to be great at hiding how drunk she actually was, but the sloppy nights recorded here contradict that statement. I wouldn't want to grab a drink with her. Honestly, I am not sure that there are any real lessons here. Being only a few years older than the author, there are some life experiences timing-wise that I identified with, but I really had a hard time connecting with the author's story. She seems to take a lot of the people in her life for granted and comes off rather vain.

Tiffany was a student at Bristol University when her long time boyfriend killed himself, she finds it difficult to cope and finally wrote her feelings down in this book.
It was devastating for her to go through this alone and without help so writes it down in this book but it doesn't flow easily and difficult to read just a lot of jumbled memories.
I don't know how it ever got published.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review
Posted to Goodreads

This book reflects on grief, loss, and resilience. It's an emotional read, and as a memoir, may trigger some emotions, however, it may be a useful reflection for some readers. Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Wow !

Thank you so much for @netgallery and Tiffany Philippou for this personal and moving ARC.

This was heart breaking in so many ways but so beautifully written.

I feel it was an incredibly moving book that tugged at my heart.

Thank you so much for sharing this story . I think this is a must read for anyone who has lost anyone.

“Shame is a monster that grows inside us. We all have the monster, it's what we decide to do with it that determines how we live our lives. This is my story...”

My thanks to Thread Books for an eARC via NetGalley of‘Totally Fine (And Other Lies I've Told Myself)’ by Tiffany Philippou in exchange for an honest review.

In this memoir Tiffany Philippou shares her experience of grief after her boyfriend Richard took his own life in the summer of 2008. Grief is never easy to write about and when suicide is involved it often adds layers of guilt and shame to the bereavement.

I certainly could relate to her situation and applauded her for sharing her experiences with such candour. Hopefully this memoir will assist others struggling with their own grief.

I had thought that the memoir would focus more on this aspect rather than to chart her subsequent career and romantic life. However, as Richard’s death happened when she had just turned nineteen, I expect that it was important for her to share that eventually her life did carry on despite this shattering event.

So even though I found it hard to connect to those more conventional sections of the memoir, it’s likely that other readers will be able to relate.

I was very impressed by her Epilogue in which she shared the speech that she wished she had given at Richard’s funeral. It was extremely powerful and moved me to tears.

I was pleased that she included resources for those who might be experiencing suicidal thoughts for both the U.K. and USA, though I felt that some resources for those effected by the suicide of a loved one would also have been useful.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.

A story about suicide and grief

In 2008, while on the train back to London, Tiffany received the phone call that changed her life. Her boyfriend, Richard, had tried to take his own life and was in hospital. He died 7 days later.

She then spent the next decade pretending to the outside world that it hadn’t happened, suffering in silence while outwardly pretending she was fine. Relying on alcohol or burying herself in work (or sometimes both) as coping mechanisms to ignore the shame, blame and judgment she felt.

It was only when she started therapy in her late 20’s that she really started to make peace with his death and allowed herself to stop feeling guilty and angry

This is a totally heart-wrenching true story of grief and the resultant shame that led to the derailment of her life and the bottling up of her feelings, all of which meant she continued to feel the impact of it all for a long time.

At times, the way she acted at work and treated her boyfriends felt selfish but she was lucky to have real friends around her supporting her and helping her through.

The timeline of the book was mostly linear, but at times it jumped around a bit - it felt like I was reading someone’s diary, like she was trying to get thoughts out of her head as quickly as possible, with no editing to restructure afterwards.

I spent most of the book feeling desperately sad for Tiffany so I was so pleased when she started therapy and taking charge of her life again. It was an insight into the aftermath of death by suicide.

Overall it was interesting to read and it was probably therapeutic for her to write

Tiffany lost her boyfriend during college and found it affected her life in more ways than she could ever have imagined. A look at grief and how she dealt with it.

This was an interesting read and so very open and honest. Its a subject that people find difficult to talk about especially when it concerns suicide. This book is quite raw at times but I found parts of it very relatable having expereienced grief myself. Its detailed and expressive. She doesn't hide up the darker sides of her grief so you get a real picture of how it changed her life.

This book tells the story of Tiffany’s life starting when she left London for Bristol University.

It’s where she met Richard, who became her boyfriend. Tiffany describes their relationship and university life, and events that led to Richard’s suicide.

She has spent nearly a decade blaming herself, thinking of other possibilities, the what ifs… After Richard’s death, Tiffany found solace in alcohol and parties. The book follows Tiffany as she enters the world of work and she begins new relationships.

She depicts with brutal honesty how she would lust after men that didn’t want her and her social anxiety is palpable in each chapter.

Tiffany left for New York, where she gained weight and got into debt, before finally coming back to the UK, and obsessing over exercise to lose weight.

As I was reading, I got an impression that Tiffany was always doing things in an extreme way, she was always searching to fill the void. I was glad to find out she got into therapy and received all the help she needed, however, it took her a long time to search for help.

Overall, it’s a heart breaking and poignant read. I cannot even begin to imagine the pain that Tiffany has gone through.

Thank you to Thread Books for accepting my NetGalley request to review this copy.

Totally Fine (and Other Lies I’ve Told Myself) by Tiffany Philippou

Published: March 17, 2022
Thread
Pages: 240
Genre: 3/5
KKECReads Rating: Love & Loss
I received a copy of this book for free, and I leave my review voluntarily.

Tiffany Philippou is a writer and podcaster who lives in London, and her website has further information about her writing, podcast, newsletter, and social media.
She co-hosts the work, life, and happiness podcast Is This Working? and it’s been described by The Guardian as ‘its look at mental health, productivity, and even loneliness feels increasingly vital.’ She previously spent over ten years working in leadership roles in startups, and in addition to her work as a writer and podcaster, Tiffany works as a consultant and recruiter for startups. 

“Speaking shame is important because its survival depends on being undetected.”

Tiffany was living her life as a university student, with friends and her boyfriend. Then during a holiday, she receives the devastating news that changes her life. And she spends the next several years struggling, trying to figure out who she is, what she wants, and what life means.

This was not the type of memoir I thought it was. This was filled with a lot of stories and anecdotes of the things that have happened to Tiffany that had some impact on her life.

This book is more of a personal manifesto and less of a learn from her experience to process your own grief.

It took me a lot longer than it should have to finish this book. I found several of the stories dry and slightly self-indulgent.

I don’t doubt or discredit the weight of the grief that Tiffany experienced, but I didn’t find this memoir inspirational or motivational.

The best part was her letter she wishes she would have read at Richard’s funeral. To me, that felt like the most genuine thing she said.

Overall, it was an alright read for me. I am not excited about it, and I’m honestly happy to have finished so I can move on to something else.