A review by hellokaley
While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence by Meg Kissinger

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

2.5

This memoir is raw and does not skirt around mental illness and the impact when left untreated and unsupported. The way this was written combined the story of the author’s family in with historical facts and details of some of the articles she has written on the topic. Although I found the history of mental health in America details to be really interesting, I found most of the memoir to be painfully detailed and long. There were so many characters and I felt the level of detail and random stories didn’t connect well into the plot. I almost DNFed at 80%, but carried on. 

There were parts of the story that I’ll think about and many things that resonated, but all in all, I think it desperately needed editing and I wish it were 3-4 hours shorter. This won’t be one I will personally recommend.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cancer, Child death, Death, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Alcohol