My thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Random House for an advanced copy of this memoir that looks at the life of someone who has always loved books, used them to learn about life, and learn about others, how they made life bearable, and when everything seemed pointless brought her back.

Books have been a comfort to me since I started reading. I take a book with me everywhere I go, about the only thing I thank cell phones and tablets for is the ability to read an ebook and not be thought of as weird. Lifes ups and numerous downs I have always had something to read, to focus on, to think and talk to myself about. I'm not sure what books get out of this more than one sided relationship. Numerous books have been tossed onto my dustbin of history, authors branded with the sobriquet of boring, not for me, because of my mood. Sometimes when depressed I take it out on my books, hate reading in a way, not wanting to give a book a break, or the care that it might deserve. Other books depress me more. Books about going to not even far away places, just places, being with people, being together with someone. I can always find books about the good things that books give people, never have I read on that shows what can happen when literature hits close to home, or a history book points out an event that the world said never again about, and is now saying oh this again. A book about how words can help you, and how words can drag on down. Bibliophobia by Sarah Chihaya is memoir that looks at reading, collecting, interpreting words, criticizing what is written and how the mind can turn all this against one, even as we try to rewrite our own lives.

Sarah Chihaya had a life based on books; acquiring them, keeping them, reading them, interpreting them and more. Chihaya taught classes on literature, wrote essays for prestigious magazines, lectured and breathed about the power of words. Inside Chihaya was a mess, with feeling that made Chihaya feel inadequate, stressed, angry, sad, and more. While this depression had always been present, it began to grow darker and meaner. Soon Chihaya has to be hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, and that added a whole new list of things to feel bad about. Added to this was the fact that words didn't seem to have the same impact anymore. Some books had not only spoken to Chihaya, but had changed Chihaya in ways that were becoming apparant years later. Certain books and left imprints, imprints that Chihaya calls "life ruiners". Books can devastate with emotions, but these made Chihaya question everything, from Chihaya's past, to the moments leading up to Chihaya's breakdown. Word had gotten Chihaya where she was, could they get Chihaya to a better place.

A memoir for readers who have used a books as not only a crutch, but as a way of understanding things. I know I have, and I knew a few people I have come across in the various book industries I have worked in who also did this. I know when talking about something that most people do normally, but that I would not I do say, "Well I read that in a book once". I never use other entertainment mediums to explain my thinking so much. Which I why this book spoke so much to me. That and the fact that Chihaya talks so openly and honestly about her bouts of depression. Much of this seem familiar, in a way that I could use many of her comments as examples of "life ruiners". This sounds like the book is a downer it is not. Just by writing this book means that Chihaya has better feelings about herself, and life. Chihaya is a very good writer, and like I said an honest writer, not afraid to dig, or expose many of the moments that almost finished Chihaya.

Similar in a way to William Styron's Darkness Visible, a book that I read years ago and one that could be companion piece to this. There are a lot of people who could benefit from this book. People going through a lot, people who use books to make life bearable. There are many, like the author who might not be aware of their struggles, struggles that others can see. This might be a title to gift these people, if nothing else, to let them know they are not alone.

Sarah Chihaya's memoir Bibliophobia is a unique reflection on the intertwining of reading and mental health. She is a writer and is an avid reader who finds real connection to books. She jumps back and forth in time, centering on a hospitalization for severe depression which she experienced on and off in her life. She highlights particular books that resonated deeply with her. She calls Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye her "life ruiner" which she defines as a book that sets you on a path to a life built by and around reading. Other books highlighted include books by Ruth Ozeki, Ali Smith, and the Anne of Green Gables oeuvre. She reads psychiatry's main diagnostic text in order to better understand her diagnosis. She ties her reading habit to her depression writing "it was a way not to live in my life, to not live in my body, to not live at all, but also not be entirely outside of it, not yet anyway." This statement I imagine will resonate with a lot of other lovers and books.

It is an interesting framing of a memoir. Lovers of literature and those interested in mental health challenges will enjoy this, though the framing may be challenging for some.

Thank you to Random House via NetGalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for honest review.

I was really looking forward to "Bibliophobia" but unfortunately, this book left me feeling frustrated. The author mentions a lot of novels, and I felt like my reading experience was dampened because of that. It's like I think I'd rather just read all the novels she mentioned then read this particular book. The author can definitely write, and she's very good at comminuting her struggles with mental illness, but I still felt disappointment after I finished this book. I don't think I was the tended audience, I'm in the minority here, so many reviewers absolutely love this book. It's a mixed bag for me.

This wasn't my favorite work of nonfiction, though the synopsis drew me in immediately. I appreciated many of Chihaya's points and meditations, but her writing style doesn't fully click with my own reading preferences.

I’ve repeatedly heard Bibliophobia as THE memoir for readers. In her book, Sarah Chihaya gives us beautiful interactions with texts that have shaped her life. Each commentary applies both a personal lens, as well as some form of intellectual critique. While I really appreciated her ability to describe a bibliophile’s compulsion to read, and the emotional effect of books, I wish I was more familiar with the texts used in Bibliophobia. Had I been, I think I would have gotten more out of it.

Before diving into this one I would encourage everyone to make sure they are comfortable with the topical content on depression, as this memoir is certainly heavy emotionally. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I can’t think of a book that defies the want or need for a review more than Bibliophobia; however, I agreed to give one for my ARC from Random House & NetGalley so here we go. I love when critics/essayists write memoirs as their longer works tend to be digestible in short bits which is ideal for lifelong readers who in their daily bustle find little time to steal away for a good book (especially during the holiday season). I found myself doing exactly the things she chided herself for doing — trying to make the act of my reading this into a production of some sort. But once I started considering this as produce, I found myself yearning for more. For me, you needed to be in a bit of a thinking mood in order to take it in at times, but I appreciated the prose, structure, & just overall connection to literature. I now look forward to revisiting my Life Ruiner — Brave New World.

"𝘉𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘣𝘪𝘢 𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴. 𝘐𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘢 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘴, 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘐 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘯, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘧𝘪𝘤, 𝘶𝘯𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘶𝘯𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬: 𝘮𝘺 𝘰𝘸𝘯. 𝘈𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘥𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘐 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘪𝘦 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘐 𝘸𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬."

A reader’s book and a writer’s book. What if you’re both? If you ever loved reading but were scared about certain aspects like the never-ending tbr or the gut punch emotions that sit in your stomach after a book hangover, this one is for you.

Brutally honest. In the shameless kind of way. With appreciation for DeWitt’s The Last Samurai, Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, and Yiyun Li’s frankness around unaliving yourself, a lot of this is about me: reading, writing, life, and death. I run through a vicious cycle of pages and thoughts and applications on a day to day basis. I’ve always thought, why do I do this? Is it enjoyable? What am I running away from? What am I trying to say better? What parts of myself, the stories, the simple ones, the hard ones, the ones I don’t even know how to talk about, how can I tell it to someone like you?

“𝘈𝘴 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳, 𝘐 𝘢𝘮 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. 𝘈𝘴 𝘢 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳, 𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘺 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴. 𝘈𝘴 𝘢 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯, 𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘺 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯. 𝘐𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘮𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴, 𝘐 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘮𝘺𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘧𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦, 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘶𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘢𝘵 𝘶𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘨."

The collection of the essays are tidy, fan service for contemporary lithic heads, and wonderfully executed with beautiful progressions in revealing Chihaya not just as a writer or professor, but us as a reader.

The reader is universal. We come for the same thing: a good story. And Chihiya has a good one to tell.

Chihiya speaks intimately and honestly about her struggle with depression, her mental breakdown, and her time on an inpatient psychiatric hospital ward while dissecting literature that, for better or worse, shaped her. Bibliophobia is eloquently written and offers a look at how books—reading them and writing them—can affect your personal narrative and identity.

“This happens a lot, that feeling when I can’t remember if I thought a thought or if a book planted it in my brain… I wonder if, without them, I’d have any thoughts at all. Or if I would be anyone at all.”

Chihaya writes with sharp, direct prose that is easy to lap up. I think readers far and wide are going to love this one.

Thank you Random House for the early copy in exchange for an honest review. Available Feb. 4 2025. *Quotes are pulled from an advanced reader copy and are subject to change prior to publication*

In the chapter where Sarah Chihaya after affirming her identity as a reader, extended her skill from being a reader of books to a reader of people, I was reminded of Henry Miller’s book, The Books in My Life. In the chapter entitled Living Books, Miller describes his ‘living books’ from the perspective of knowing little, as a student confronted with a teacher as knowledgeable as a text, humble and grateful, before the font of knowledge, an interaction as a way of learning. Miller’s relationship to people as books seems far less intrusive than the Chihaya’s approach, an objectification of people, a magical way of knowing people without taking the time to get to know them. Chihaya’s way is hubris: I read, I become authority, the academy validates and sanctions my authority to read books interpretatively, an interpretation that also works on people, I know books, I know people.

There is an earlier time in her life when she was touched by books, by novels that function as guide books and their authors in the spirit of Henry Miller. From childhood her journey as a reader is kept in motion by her guide books written, primarily, by women authors. As a child reader she describes reading and invisibility. Later her reading alters when she is assigned in highschool Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, a personal look into her life as a racial other in North America. With Morrison’s novel, her reading becomes purposeful. In the university, she reads to gain tenure, to become part of higher education as a professor of reading within the academy. Her learning how to read books at academic levels becomes increasingly complex. When the love and passion of reading becomes exclusively academic in pursuit of a doctorate, reading outside the academy seems unauthentic as do readers without academic degrees who are parsed instead of engaged.

Her severity and relentless push leads to the all too familiar burnout and breakdown associated with higher education. She enters a mental institution. The road to recovery is a claiming of her Japanese heritage. Her guide at this stage of her journey is Ruth Ozeki and her novel, A Tale for the Time Being. Unfortunately, the examples of people who love reading who follow the path of higher education as academic readers do risk mental breakdowns and thoughts of suicide. Outside the academy there is a long list of poets who committed suicide or were hospitalized.

There are lovers of books, readers and writers inside and outside the academy who learn to balance their lives. Reading of the life of D H Lawrence and his works, a reader feels oneself in presence of a passion near madness. Lawrence’s persona is so toxic, biographers struggle with him, as Chihaya describes in her critique of Geoff Dyer’s digressive biography of Lawrence. Henry Miller and Anais Nin struggled with biographies of Lawrence. A lover of Henry Miller’s work and lifestyle, Erica Jong, stepped away from an MFA for a year before returning and completing her thesis on the women in the works of Lawrence, Miller and James Joyce. She decided not to pursue a doctorate and instead became a poet, novelist, and memoirist, showing there is passion in reading and writing outside and beyond the academy.

Sarah Chihaya is part of a growing tradition of women writing about the arts, reinforcing a canon of women in the arts after centuries of exclusion and marginalization, of women artists demonized and made to feel invisible. And she has a doctorate.

My thanks to Random House and NetGalley for an advanced readers copy.

DNF at ~45%

“A must for the obsessive reader.”

Hey so I'm in this book and I'm concerned. Also, I'm 0-15 for reading all the books mentioned up til this point which is to its merit, but then reading the plot summary of them in these essays isn't a choice I would make. Yes, I should've read all of Anne of Green Gables and Toni Morrison and A. S. Byatt by now, but I haven't.

While I liked the first essay very much, the book became repetitive after the 15% mark. And it may have delivered me into a reading slump because I felt so out of focus reading this. This is a deeply personal memoir, and while I can appreciate it, I got bored. Which is, you know, valid because this is a real person's life and thoughts and not a constructed fiction narrative that entertains, and they should not have to cater to me in any way so it's fine to get bored. However, because of this, I don't think this is a book for everyone. It's a book for people at a time and space where they want to engage with these essays of an emotional and highly specific life experience, talked about through critically acclaimed books. I am not there and so I may retry this one when I get to it. For now, it doesn't feel worth it to struggle through this book.

3 stars because I can tell these essays are fun as well as poignant, but these feel like the extended forewords of the books referenced rather than their own standalone narrative.

Chihaya took "we tell ourselves stories in order to live" to heart.
In all seriousness, I found this book quite moving. A memoir-in-books about reading, writing, and the narratives we construct around our lives, with an enthusiastic gloss of several key books in Chihaya's life: Morrison's The Bluest Eye, DeWitt's The Last Samurai, Byatt's Possession, Anne Carson's The Glass Essay (this chapter was particularly strong), and Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being. This is a book especially concerned about the relationships a person constructs with reading, what they hope to get from books, and the act of reading as a process of writing and vice versa; the author's relationship with books and reading is also told through the lens of her life-long depression. 4.5 stars, rounded up.

Critically examining a variety of texts and the profound impacts they had on her throughout various points of her life, Sarah Chihaya has written a beautiful and fascinating exploration in her literary mental health memoir; Bibliophobia.

Perfect for avid readers and memoir lovers alike, while taking on themes such as memory, identity, belonging, time, and love. The writing and story unfolded in a compelling manner that drew me deeper into the author’s inner workings and personal experiences, many of which resonated with my own.

Thank you to NetGalley, Author Sarah Chihaya and Publisher Random House for access to a digital ARC. All opinions are my own.

This is the kind of high brow memoir that drew me in at parts while also making me feel like a total poser. It brought to mind a certain aesthetic, which the author describes at one point when she finds herself reading other writers' depression memoirs. It's a mood, right? Or is it a cliche? Relating to parts of the book made me feel almost embarrassed, as if I was trying too hard to be liked back by it. I also felt like a fraud because I haven't read many of the books Chihaya describes and so I can only take her word for it when she writes about how impactful they were/are. Part of me wanted to be like, "Ah, yes, me too. I know what you mean. I feel this too." But the best I can do is to think, "I'm glad you got so much from these books. What a feeling that is!"

Well, I’m rounding up to 3.5. One thing is certain, if you read this book, you will engage with all future books in a different deeper manner.Sarah Chihaya is honest and quite transparent about her mental illness which led to her bout of Bibliophobia, the fear of books, not literally, but the fear of engaging with texts, because when one does there is an effect. Sometimes positive, sometimes negative. Certain books and characters stay with us long after we have flipped the final page.

“A few years ago, I got very interested in the idea that everyone who is incurably obsessed with books has a Life Ruiner. The Life Ruiner is the book that sets you on the path to a life built by and around reading. To call it a Life Ruiner is not to say that a life of letters is necessarily ruination—but rather, to identify it as the book you can’t ever recover from, that you never stop thinking about, and that makes you desperate to reach that frightening depth of experience with other books.”


And what if that staying weighs heavy on your mind, too heavy to lift off, too heavy for you to lightly approach another book. Well that’s the dark reality of Sarah’s relationship to literature which eventually led to a full on breakdown.

“I had not yet learned that there are ways to read such that books stay with you—in you—forever. I was years away from the understanding that there are certain books that modify your chemical composition so palpably you fear you might no longer breathe air or drink water. And it becomes clear that something ever so slight but important in the way you read the world is altered forever. These are the books that make us grow up or sometimes realize that we have long since grown up.”

Her prose surrounding books is really what makes this text soar, even when her writing concerning her struggles with depression threatens to derail the entire project. She manages to keep the fascination on the page in her examination of her emotions and how they shape her engagement with books.

“For better or worse, you are what you eat. The books that refuse to be easily digested, the ones that churn up anxieties and fears you never knew you had: These are the ones that have most strongly shaped my own experience of reading as an adult. Looking back, they shaped even some of my earliest and clearest memories of reading—both books and the world outside them. I’ve only recently come to see that my relationship to books has become, or perhaps has always been, an uncomfortable but necessary vacillation between love and terror—between bibliophilia and bibliophobia.”

The overbearing discussion of suicidality, is what drags it down to 3.5. It was a bit much for this reader, your tolerance may vary. With that being said, I’m still enthusiastically recommending this book. Thank you to Random House and Netgalley for an advanced DRC. The book will be available Feb. 4, 2025

A beautiful memoir told through stories of books and depression. For those of us who have lived our lives going from book to book, always looking for the one that can save us (while always hoping the next one will finally do the trick). Masterfully written and from the heart, the book is an honest portrayal of what it means to live a life through books.

“Since I was a child, I have secretly believed that if I read enough, one day the right book would come along and save me.”

BIBLIOPHOBIA is a beautifully written memoir centered on the knowledge that books and reading have the ability to deeply and profoundly impact life and how you live it. Chihaya's writing style is clean and gorgeous - fitting for someone who seems to live and breathe the written word - and able to clearly convey the emotion tied to each of the works she is discussing in relation to her family, her job, and her depression. This is arguably not a happy book, but I don't think I would call it sad either. Mostly it feels straightforward, and definitely it's one I would recommend, especially for those who can recall with little effort the books that have really and truly changed their life.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was so touching. Reading about Chihaya's experiences and the books that effected their life was beautiful and I think a great book that people who have also had books change their lives will also love this book. I found myself reflected in the pages because as book lovers we all have books who have great effected us. The writing is beautiful and touching, Chihaya's voice shines in this novel and I can't recommend it enough

A beautifully written memoir a story about books about an almost overpowering love for books & reading,The author shares with us the story of her love for books and also the times she could not settle into a book.As a memoir we learn of her life her depression her childhood memories.As someone who related to an overwhelming love for books I loved this book from beginning to end willbe recommending to my bookworm friends.#netgalley #randomhouse

Did I just read one of the best books of 2025… in 2024? If Alexander Chee and Sylvia Plath had a Japanese Canadian/American bookworm baby, it would be Sarah Chihaya. Not-quite-a-memoir BIBLIOPHOBIA is a collection of Chihaya’s musings and analyses on her relationship with books, depression, family, and racial identity.

Chihaya’s prose is so satisfyingly clean and incisive. My favorite writers are those who know how to distill a fleeting thought, emotion, experience, or state of being into crystalline lines that rattle with sharpness. My e-ARC is littered with highlights. Some of these include:

“I was enraptured by the book itself but equally enraptured with the sense that it gave me someone to be.”

“I immediately, repeatedly reread certain passages at a word-by-word crawl, not to understand what happened, but to figure out how it was happening…”

“We indeed are all ‘by-products of the mid-twentieth century,’ as Ozeki writes, and I irrationally and grandiosely fear that like microplastics, like neo-imperial structures of power, like the internet, I too am circulating some insidious unknown poison as I move through the world.”

1. “Life Ruiners”

This book is a Life Ruiner. Chihaya feels like the kind of person I could be, want to be, don’t want to be, and/or will inevitably become. To be so astute about the experiences of reading, and yet to suffer as a result of acute astuteness… Will I get madder the closer I try to get to words?

This memoir/essay collection is titled BIBLIOPHOBIA because, as much as Chihaya’s identity and career revolve around reading and writing about books, she has a deep-seated fear of the power that books hold over her. Her fear of and attraction to “Life Ruiners” is due to that dreadful desire, that desired dread, that you are, in fact, not a unique individual, but a ghost, because all your thoughts have already been thought and said by someone else much more intelligent/reflective/successful/emotive than you.

When I first learned of this book, I joked that there was no more need for me to write a memoir, because Chihaya had unwittingly written mine for me: the story of an Asian diaspora girl with a tumultuous family, lifelong depression, and a too-complicated relationship with books. It’s true that I can no longer focus my memoir on my mental health and love of books, because Chihaya has written it much better than I ever could, and I am simultaneously impressed and aggrieved by that. This book is a Life Ruiner, indeed.

2. On depression

“That’s the annoying fact that challenges all writing about depression: It is just not a good story. It usually does not have a clearly defined beginning or ending; it’s mostly just terrible, boring middle after terrible, boring middle.”

As much as we (and, to some extent, she) know that her brain had these thoughts, and her hands wrote these words, for the longest time Chihaya couldn’t see through her depression that she was the author of her own life. I might’ve had a cry at this point. Depression really makes you feel like you are not in the driver’s seat. At the same time it is the most infuriatingly mundane thing to describe or experience ever. In Chihaya’s words:

“It is more than the dull throb–it is a dull dullness, a drained immobility that I would not have had words to explain then, as a child of seven or eight, except to say ‘I’m tired.’”

“I’m just tired.” “I’m okay.” How many times have we sufferers from depression uttered these same words as an inadequate attempt to encapsulate the neverending nothingness we feel?

3. Reading as erasure, reading as identity building

“...living as I have among books, I have been cultivating the feeling of being a ghost for a long time.”

“I alternated between being someone who was forever at the mercy of plots I had no control over, and being someone who believed they knew exactly how those plots worked: in other words, between being a character and being a critic.”

Depression as the pilot of her life meant that, for the longest time, Chihaya consumed books not just to escape–not just to try and make sense of her own identity–but to erase. Think about how much mental (depression), physical (family), and social (race) tumult one has to experience to read books not merely to escape, which implies temporariness, but to erase, which implies annihilation of the self. Devastating.

Even when she felt she was exerting control over her life–Chihaya-as-critic and not Chihaya-as-character–she still did not believe that she was Chihaya-as-author. This metaphor of depression’s hold on one’s thoughts means that when Chihaya discovers that there is a life beyond the finality of suicidality:

“When the time came, and I asked for help, nobody was more shocked than I. It was like I’d turned to the end of a book I’d read a hundred times and found that somehow the words had changed–or rather, that I myself had unwittingly rewritten them.”

When you’re depressed, life seems to have no beginning or end. Nothingness has no beginning or end; it was all that there was, is, and will be. Chihaya’s complicated relationship with books begins to make sense if you understand how a depressed person’s mind works.

4. On race, family, & trauma

“Nervous breakdown was not for the children of immigrants.”

One thing I love about this next generation of Asian (American) writers is that their race forms part, but not all, of their identity and struggles, which is a more honest and liberating perspective. In BIBLIOPHOBIA, Chihaya’s struggles with her depression were compounded by the fact that she came from a familial culture for which mental health isn’t really a thing. Many of us children of Asian immigrants can relate to this struggle between the American openness about therapy and mental health and the Asian silence on the topic. It can make the experience of being depressed even more isolating and out-of-body, if our families are one of those that don’t talk about mental health issues. In such a case, the silence feels like gaslighting: Am I really depressed if no one around me acknowledges it? Am I simply weak because I cannot convince my brain to stop feeling this way, when everyone around me is “fine”?

Casual childhood abuse is also something that Chihaya writes about with chilling insightfulness. “I grew up in a series of houses that were always about to slide off a cliff”, she says. On recalling her father’s temper:

“I still feel it involuntarily in my body now. My fingers, resting on the keyboard, are suddenly cold. A chill thread tugs upward through my spine, snagging and gathering nerves as it goes. There is a slight, irregular flutter somewhere deep inside my chest. The curved outer rims of my ears ache weirdly like someone is pulling up on them.”

Powerful, and accurate.

5. Not quite a memoir, and quite a bit more

BIBLIOPHOBIA is titled a memoir, but Chihaya would be the first one to tell you that it has only the loosest bearing on one. This is because Chihaya doesn’t recall or recount experiences in chronological order; her memory, she says, doesn’t work like that, instead storing things such as feelings and textures. There’s a fair amount of literary analysis that reads quite academic (she is a literature professor, after all). I’ll admit I enjoyed the vulnerable moments when she shared about herself more than the literary analysis parts, but can see why both parts are needed and build on one another.

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The book that Chihaya didn’t (couldn’t?) write before this one, the one she needed to have written to earn her PhD, focuses on the academic concept she terms “denarrative desire.” This is the simultaneous feeling that all will be well if only you reach the end of the book, and the desire to erase what you have just read in order to read it again to experience it (differently?). Having finished BIBLIOPHOBIA, I certainly now have the denarrative desire to immediately experience it again. If we’re talking about books that alter my brain chemistry, then BIBLIOPHOBIA is certainly one, and I can’t thank Sarah Chihaya enough for being brave and vulnerable enough to share this with us.

"Bibliophobia" is well written and interesting, in particular for people who love books. As a memoir, it deals with the author's experience of feeling like an outsider, as well as with her experiences of depression, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. Some literary connections work better than others; there are books she refers to that are jarring, and don't seem to fit as well within the narrative. Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for the ARC. Pub Date: Feb 4, 2025. #Bibliophobia