Arianna Rebolini's Better: A Memoir About Wanting to Die is a beautiful and deeply affecting story that takes readers through the complexity of living with depression and suicidality, the messy process of healing, and the reality that "healed" doesn't really exist.

What sets Better apart is the way Arianna delves into the ripple effects her mental health struggle has on her role as a mother and the ones it may have on her son's life. Her exploration of the conflicting feelings surrounding what—and when—to share with her son about difficult topics like death feels both delicate and deeply honest.

I was particularly impressed by how seamlessly she intertwines personal narrative with academic insight. The inclusion of research on suicide and reflections from literary figures enriches the book, offering a broader context to her personal struggles. Arianna also opens up an essential dialogue about the mental health system and reminds us that those who need the most help often aren't able to receive it.

This is a book that stays with you long after you turn the last page: heartbreaking, hopeful, and deeply human. I can't recommend it enough.

2 stars.

DNF at 41%

Though I did not finish the book I felt I read enough to give it a rating. This is meant to be a memoir of suicide. The author wanted to kill herself when she was nineteen, but is does not appear she made a serious attempt as she spoke to a friend and took herself to the emergency room. After a brief period on the hospital’s psychology ward and years of therapy and despite a good marriage, a fulfilling job and the birth of a child she became suicidal again when she was in debt as an adult.

Her brother seems to have had a far more difficult time, spending years rotating in and out of treatment centers, often expressing a desire to die. It appears doctors have never been able to get him to a point of equilibrium that has lasted any significant period of time.

I was interested in the book when the author talked about herself or her brother (but I was not at all sure how I felt about her laying her brother’s issues before the public. He appears profoundly disturbed and I wonder about issues of consent with him, and whether, at the time she got it, he might have been so deeply within his mental illness that he was unsure about what he was doing? I don’t know. She just…there’s so MUCH.

But, anyway, at least those parts were good. But often she goes deeply into her thoughts (and those of others) about Plath and Woolf and those sections draggggggged. She notes, “Most writing on suicide…arrives and is possible only in moments when the writer is outside danger, from places of safety, lacking the immense and full access to the urgency felt with in the state of suicidality (is that a word? Because she uses it a LOT.) it is examining, so it is weakened by distance. Their perspectives necessarily tend toward the philosophical, spiritual, scientific.” So, you know, she explains away why her book might be boring.

Still boring, though. I found myself dreading it every time I picked it up again, so I was kind to myself and just let it go. I hope for many good things for her brother.