First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Story About Anxiety | 
so-soA good mate gave this to me as a present, and this year I‘m trying to prioritise reading books received as gifts. 🥰
It isn‘t something I would‘ve picked for myself but was one of those reads that I started to absorb more of as I recovered while in hospital a few months ago. It grew on me!
(I hate giving lukewarm book reviews/summaries, but being able to articulate why is important! and the Litsy community is very welcoming that way 💜)
Freud believed anxiety attunes us not just to external threats (charging rhinos, dodgy people in alleyways, off milk) but to internal threats and the need for growth. The discomfort Brown mentions brings this growth perhaps. Anxiety is a sign we need to move and change our lives.
pickPart memoir, part self help with anxiety. I adore Sarah Wilson.
pickBook 45👂🏻🎵 - 3.5⭐️
I did overall like this book! I found some of her story‘s and feelings with anxiety relatable and she speaks about it so easily.
I found the chapter endings a little abrupt but it may have just been how it was read.
Overall she makes you feel normal to be a human, an adult, with anxiety🤍
pickI am almost done this one and I LOVE it! Absolutely love it. It's perfect for anyone struggling with anxiety!
panI hated reading this. I appreciate her openness and honesty with her struggles with mental health, but I found myself mostly agitated, resentful and irritated with her. I finished the book only out of stubbornness but I really would not recommend this to anyone who might be on the edge with their mental health. It‘s set me off into a very severe depression cycle.
pickLile settling in for a good chat with a friend about life with anxiety and mental illness, with a few thoughts and tips scattered throughout
About to begin this lovely book. Delve into the depths of my anxiety.
Right book at the right time.💝
Isn‘t this cover beautiful... wanted to get the book for that alone but I choose to get a different book (Tbp) 😝
pick#7coversin7days Thanks to those who tagged me @Rissreads Have you been tagged yet? Post a cover you love each day for 7 days and tag a friend. No explanation needed.
Love this ❤️
“Humans will have to survive by being the inventors of their own nature.
They‘ll have to improvise, inventing their own furs and manufacturing contraptions with speed.
And they‘ll have to remain restless.”
panThe only good thing about this book is the beautiful cover.
It‘s the perfect weather to read and drink coffee outside!
pickAmah-zing highly recommend
pickAmah-zing highly recommend
Found this on reddit. Reminder to everyone out there that you are not your thoughts. #anxiety #mentalhealth #depression
I love this quote I found
Such a pretty cover! Love birthday books!
pickI picked this on a recommendation. It deals with the author‘s journey on dealing with her anxiety and her auto immune disease. It provides causes and some doable suggestions on conquering anxiety. Some of these suggestions can be implemented even if you are not anxious. I liked it but I am not a very anxious person. Someone who has anxiety will be a better judge of this book. However the overall ideas and solutions were excellent. And, octopus!
I stumbled upon this at my favorite local bookseller here in Minneapolis, Magers & Quinn. I was there to purchase “The Noonday Demon” but this caught my eye and I left with three books, as often happens in bookstores. More research/reading toward my memoir writing!
so-soA book about anxiety. The author shares things that work for her and gives advice. As someone with anxiety, I felt some of it was generalized a bit too much. But it was interesting to read if taken as a personal story and not overall advice for everyone.
so-soThis book has good nuggets that I underlined and starred. There are things I could relate to that made me think “yes!” Maybe about 50-75 pages of useful anxiety info.
There‘s also a lot of junk. A LOT. She tells you often to get off sugar - and check out her books and program to help you, which seems disingenuous at best, slimy at worst. I also found her really unlikeable, making the book harder to get through. More of a memoir. #readwomen
bailedI really wanted to like this (that cover! that title!) but it just isn‘t working for me. I need more science/psychology/research to back up her ideas, instead of the self-help tone of the book. I liked hearing her own personal experiences, but instead of presenting them like a memoir, she uses them to make blanket statements about anxiety. Like that everyone with anxiety has her type-A, high-achieving personality. Back to the library it goes.
“I‘d add that, in such instances, we‘d love everyone (someone?) to see that we absolutely do not have our shit together. And to come and tell us they‘ve got this one. Even for five minutes. The more anxious we are, the more we‘d really love someone to come and take the load off us and help us cope for a bit.” 😔yep
Smitten Kitchen‘s Deb Perelman put up a three ingredient cacio e pepe and we added bacon and it was delicious!
More importantly, as someone who struggles with, and helps others through, anxiety, this book was intriguing to me. The cover is spectacular. And the, title? OMG I love it. We will see how it goes!
Even though, Finn looks like he is doubtful about this book, I have to say I‘m really enjoying it. I feel like this is going to be a book I recommend to anyone who talks to me about any fear, stress, anxiety in their life. #dogsoflitsy #recommendsday
Read a few quick pages to get in the right headspace before I leave for my Mental Health 1st Aid training course today - going to be a very intense two days!
We officially became “stressed” from 1950, when the term was invented by an Austrian-Canadian physician who worked tirelessly to popularize the term with a one-person campaign to get the word into dictionaries around the world. An etiology I just love. #dontweall?
So excited to get started on this one! It was at the top of the (gigantic) #tbr
so-soThe author writes candidly, but not always well. I found that she seems to think that her experiences with anxiety are the same as anyone with anxiety, and it just isn‘t true. There were parts that resonated and parts that made me cringe because of her name-dropping and clueless privilege. I‘m glad there is honesty about anxiety, and I hope that more people will contribute so that there are more diverse voices than this.
I'm adding several audiobooks to itunes tonight and the tagged book is really sparking my curiosity! I tried to circle my typical audiobook tasks, but cooking and walking are my favorites. @RealLifeReading
Perfect Friday afternoon
pickI really enjoyed the flow of this book. Short sections of information provided tools to helping control the beast making this a far less boring read than it had the potential to be. If I had one criticism it is that the author has had many experiences the average person will probably not and this made it a little less relatable than anticipated despite its conversational style. But, it does show that anxiety can affect anyone.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
pickReading this book is like having the best, deepest, most therapeutic and raucous and tearful and cathartic conversation with a friend and then the feeling afterward, maybe at 4 in the morning, when you‘re resting together in the peace of laying all your cards on the table and knowing and being known. This is a book you‘ll want to hug about a 100 times, then launch out into the world (or stay at home!) with your beautiful beast beside you.
Immediately drawn in by Wilson's casual writing style on a difficult topic. It's like we're hanging out on the porch chatting about life and anxiety and the tricks she's learned. While I would consider myself mildly afflicted with anxiety, many people close to me are more so, and this is really helpful.
Such a stunning cover! Looking forward to reading this beauty
I don‘t suffer from anxiety, but I know several who do. Maybe I‘ll be a better listener for them if I read this perspective. Plus, the cover is gorgeous.
Live the better life
