Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

Broken (in the Best Possible Way) by Jenny Lawson

10 reviews

novella42's review against another edition

I adored her essay / letter to the health insurance system. This is such a good book, and I think it's sadly beyond my capacity to handle. There's just a lot of things in it that hit my personal traumas. I tried skipping chapters, tried powering through, and finally accepted that it would be kinder to my mental health to not read this particular book on mental health. I lau hed aloud at many points, though, and I can think of half a dozen people who would love this and not have the same issues with it that I did.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Excrement, Medical content, Dementia, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

nooooels's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

This book was harder to read than her first two books. 

Some chapters were quick while others rambled on. 

There were less funny stories overall though I did laugh out loud a handful of times. 

I’m looking forward to her next work - she never disappoints. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Medical trauma

davianareads's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

This book had me laughing out loud during the comedic chapters and sympathizing with Jenny’s struggles with mental health. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness

Moderate: Cursing, Suicidal thoughts, and Dementia

Minor: Addiction, Body shaming, Blood, Medical trauma, Alcohol, and Classism

okiecozyreader's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced

4.5

This was the third Jenny Lawson book I read this summer. I got a copy from her at her bookstore. Her husband came up to me and asked me if I would like her to sign it and that he would get her for me. I didn’t know much about her at the time, but he insisted and she did come and sign it. She told me it was the first in person signing she had done since Covid (fall of 2021). She was lovely and commented on my momadvice shirt, telling me the authors on the shirt she was friends with. After reading her three books (finally) this summer, I wish I could go back to that moment, but since I can’t, I’m grateful for it.

In this one, she goes even deeper into her experiences and troubles with depression and health insurance, treatments and ups and downs. Some of it felt like journal entries sprinkled with her light-hearted ramblings that made me laugh. I ended up listening to much of it on my trip. I have struggled some with anxiety and depression for much of my life, but not to the extent Jenny writes about in this book. If you don’t have the experience, I feel like this might help people understand the suffering some go through. I do think it is courageous for her to tell her stories and read them out loud - I wonder how painful the process really is - reliving the treatments and such. She mentions her family traveling without her bc of her personal pain, and how some treatments have allowed her to finally travel with her daughter. So grateful for that.

The book also has some illustrations and photos scattered throughout. The audio ends with a chapter that tells how she did the audio in her closet during the 2020 lockdown. Both versions are terrific in different ways. I also love the last chapter about the cover illustration: 

“… I’ve never seen a collection of art that more perfectly encapsulates how I felt about my own battle with depression and anxiety and the monsters in my head. 
My personal beasties are ugly and ridiculous and they weigh me down and are exhausting to carry around. Sometimes it feels like they are larger than I am…
…
And yet, there is something wonderful in embracing the peculiar and extraordinary monsters that make us unique.” P281, 282

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Medical content, and Medical trauma

irisameliaink's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Chronic illness, Death, Mental illness, Dementia, Medical trauma, and Pandemic/Epidemic

qrschulte's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful informative reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

This book is just as enjoyable and funny as her first two, but boy was it also soooo sad at parts. Highly recommend the audiobook, read by Lawson herself. And to anyone who says our healthcare system is fine and doesn’t need reform, I request you read Chapter 9: An Open Letter to My Insurance Company, and then tell me the US HAS a really great system. A favorite quote from the book: “If simple words fixed terrible things, then terrible things wouldn’t exist.”

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Excrement, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Forced institutionalization, and Alcohol

Minor: Gore and Fire/Fire injury

jpbacik's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Cursing, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Medical content

Moderate: Cursing, Suicidal thoughts, Medical trauma, and Alcohol

Jenny Lawson is the best. While I've adored every book of hers, this one is especially funny, poignant, relatable, and beautiful.

kimveach's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Cursing, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, and Medical trauma

caseythereader's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful reflective fast-paced

4.0

 - I've been reading Jenny Lawson's writing for over a decade now. She's always been able to bounce between the absurd with the serious, and to find the absurdities within the serious things.
- She writes so clearly about what it's like to live with depression and anxiety, and how those conditions can so easily swallow your entire life - even when you're on the other side of it and are dealing with the financial and social fallout.
- Much less taxidermy in this book than previous books, just a heads up in case that's the reason you love her, lol. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body shaming, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Medical trauma, and Death of parent

tinytrashqueen's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Chronic illness, Mental illness, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Ableism, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, Dementia, and Medical trauma

Minor: Rape, Self harm, Sexual content, and Forced institutionalization

Description of animal slaughter, several mentions of insects/spiders