Review: Kristin Neff’s ‘Self-Compassion’

★★☆☆☆

Initial rating lowered from three stars to a shaky two. At first, I thought my resistance to this book was a defence mechanism, but the more I reflect on it, the more my dislike feels justified.

As a therapeutic practice, self-compassion is the art of recognising our own sufferings and being gentle on ourselves. It can help us reject the urge to beat ourselves up for our flaws and failings in favour of a more forgiving, pragmatic mindset. In short, ‘don’t be so hard on yourself, you’re only human.’

Kristin Neff is one of the leading psychologists in the field of self-compassion, and with its thousands of five-star reviews, it is clear that Self-compassion (2011) has helped many people develop this ability to empathise with themselves and to live happier lives. Unfortunately, I did not come away counting myself as one of them.

Self-compassion was recommended to me during counselling on the basis that I tend to be pretty dismissive towards myself and my own feelings. Like anything that holds a mirror to unpleasant truths, I knew this would likely be an uncomfortable read. The issue is not that I found this book challenging, however, but that I found it off-putting. Though I agree with the premise of self-compassion, and I would like to embrace it as a means of rewiring my overly critical brain, the way this book packages its ideas makes them very difficult to swallow.

I gently stroked my arms and spoke to myself in a kind, sympathetic manner. Poor darling. This is really hard right now. I comforted myself for the pain of being treated so unfairly.

For one thing, and I say this delicately, Neff’s writing is not the best. Flowery and repetitive, this book says in 270 pages what it might in 50. Also, though Neff does make some good points about the value of being self-compassionate in an often incompassionate world, the chapters are littered with linguistic mistakes such as ‘set your sites’. Given that the author has a PhD and a wealth of published research, it is reasonable to assume that she is highly intelligent, but the writing does not reflect this. I found this book dumbed down, and in places superficial.

Neff frames self-compassion through the lens of her own life experiences, particularly the breakdown of her first marriage following her affair. One of her main points is that since her ex-husband was unable to forgive her, she had to choose to forgive herself instead. Whatever our worst mistakes are, it is true that we must find ways to live with them, but I would argue it is equally important to own them and, as much as possible, to atone for the hurt caused to others. Neff believes her troubled relationship with her father and her ex-husband’s neglectful tendencies contributed to her own behaviour, which is a fair observation, but she carries this to the point of absolving herself of any responsibility for her own actions.

The thrust seems to be that there is no point in ever feeling bad for mistakes already made, because feeling bad is unpleasant, and our mistakes are never really our fault, anyway. All very comforting, but this ignores the reality that there are contexts in which we should feel bad. Never allowing ourselves to feel guilty means ignoring the ugly fallout of poor decisions and shying away from earning the forgiveness of those we have wronged. There are certain no-win situations in which this mindset may be helpful, but in suggesting that it is the ultimate trump card to play against life’s problems, Neff heavily implies that personal happiness is more important than personal honour, consideration for others, and integrity.

And who wants to be stuck in a box labeled “good” anyway? Isn’t it more interesting to revel in the full range of human experience? Instead of trying to control ourselves and our lives to obtain a perfectionistic ideal, why not embrace life as it is – both the light and the shadow? What adventures might follow if we free ourselves in this way?

Another point of focus is Neff’s struggle to accept her son’s autism diagnosis. The way the book discusses this is frankly quite depressing. The language surrounding neurodiversity has certainly evolved in the last decade, but it is not the language Neff uses that is the issue. The problem is that Neff makes it abundantly clear that she was only able to ‘accept’ her son’s autism when he learned (or was forced to learn) how to mask his autistic traits. The book all but states that the reason Neff has grown to feel incredibly proud of Rowan is because no one notices he is autistic anymore.

The last section of the book focuses particularly on this, diving into a strange tangent about the traditional healing experience Neff and her husband subjected their son to as a tantrum-prone, incontinent young child. Off the back of some equine therapy in the States, Neff and her husband decided to take Rowan to Mongolia for several weeks of hard riding in the steppe to meet a group of shamans. Though experts in the field agree there is no way to ‘fix’ autism, maybe magic would do the trick… The gist of it is that the shamans claimed Rowan was possessed by the ghost of his great-grandmother, then scared him into submission with loud noises and made him watch whilst they whipped his parents with rawhide.

Needless to say, this is not a healthy way to help a child cope with their autism, nor to deal with the weight of a diagnosis as a parent. I feel for Rowan, who is probably now old enough to understand how much distress his parents were willing to put him through in the hope of changing an essential part of his nature. Neff is convinced that this experience was transformative, which seeds considerable doubt in my mind about her honesty, and her credibility as a mental health professional.

Overall, I found the tone of Self-compassion more self-absorbed than self-aware. Some of the exercises at the end of each chapter do offer a springboard for self-reflection, and there are a few nuggets of information scattered throughout for those who enjoy psychology, but my rating reflects the problematic delivery and the fact that I found little here that was truly helpful. I would also say that you can find all the exercises included in this book, and more, simply by Googling self-compassion.

Review: Stephanie Foo’s ‘What My Bones Know’

★★★★☆

There is no escaping the past. For all that we may try to comfort ourselves with ideas about free will and the power to choose our own destiny, it is difficult to argue that past experiences in no way shape our personality and the roads available to us. Perhaps the only choice we ever have is to take what we are given and make the best of it, but given that it is statistically evident that trauma blunts our potential to find lasting happiness and fulfilment, is the attempt to marry a difficult past with hope for a better future just naïve?

For those affected by complex trauma and the mental illnesses that often result, questions about the purpose of the struggle can pose a significant challenge. After all, what is the point of trying to heal, if the insidious nature of the affliction will in all likelihood undermine the effort? As someone who lives with Complex PTSD (c-PTSD), Stephanie Foo is perhaps in a position to answer this with something stronger than pithy quotes about strength and survival. In this candid memoir, she documents her own struggles and personal journey towards peace.

Where PTSD can be caused by a single traumatic incident, such as a violent car accident or the terror experienced during a home invasion, c-PTSD more commonly stems from prolonged exposure to a repeated cycle of trauma – in Foo’s case, her abusive childhood. Frequently beaten and ultimately abandoned by both her dysfunctional parents as a young teenager, the author spent her twenties exploring psychotherapy in all its forms, desperately searching for a viable path to healing.

It was only then, in the wake of so much I had demolished, that I realized I had done this to myself, and I had done it because it had been done to me. My anger was a reflection of two people who had self-immolated with their own anger. I could see I was already kind of an asshole, and if I continued down this path, I would transform into them.

But how was I to begin letting it go when anger was the force that gave me momentum? My anger was my power. It was what protected me. Without it, wouldn’t I be sad and naked?

What My Bones Know (2022) is an extremely honest autobiography. Foo discusses the violence and emotional abuse she endured in graphic detail, and is open about her unhealthy coping mechanisms and perceived failures on the road to recovery. This is no modern fairytale, in which the heroine slays the dragon and gallops away into the rosy sunset. It is a story of desperate, protracted struggle against an insurmountable foe. There is no grand victory, no final battle in which Foo triumphs over the odds, and at the close she admits that maintaining her hard-won happiness will be a lifelong effort.

Yet this book is, decisively, a work of hope. In chasing a silver bullet for c-PTSD, Foo might not have found the answer, but she certainly made some helpful discoveries along the way, including several techniques to effectively manage her condition. Stumbling from EMDR to IFS therapy, from restorative yoga to SSRIs, Foo’s journey serves as a whistle-stop tour of modern psychotherapeutic practice. The various approaches to therapy are seldom discussed outside of textbooks written by psychologists, so I found it refreshing to read the perspective of someone seeking instead of providing these treatments, though admittedly the exploration of each therapy is rather fleeting. The book is more concerned with Foo’s personal growth than the success of any psychotherapeutic method she encountered.

The strength of What My Bones Know is its rawness. Living in a time defined by the urge to compare ourselves with others, in which we have never cared more about what other people think of us, it takes great courage to publicly declare ‘I am not a good person’. Foo does this, then delves through the sordid misery of her childhood to understand why she turned out the way she did. She might not apologise for her mistakes, but she does analyse and own them. In places, this text is a great example of the strength and liberation that comes with the willingness to be vulnerable.

Since reading about damaged PTSD brains, I’d been losing faith in my own mind. Every time I tried to touch a memory, doubts and questions multiplied around it, preventing me from being about to see my own past.

How much of my own experience had I projected onto other children because it was happening to me, because I hadn’t wanted to be alone?

Foo often presents her life through the lens of her Asian American heritage. Having grown up with a mother who might be described as a grotesque extreme of the ‘tiger mom’ stereotype, Foo ties her experiences to a wider cultural narrative of intergenerational trauma. There may be something to this, but I must say I found this aspect of the book rather clumsy. Foo makes a number of sweeping generalisations about her Malaysian relatives and the wider Asian continent, painting a portrait that feels incomplete, and unnuanced. It is also obvious that her reading of certain cultural behaviours is informed only by her own (very American) perspective. Sometimes her opinions seem arrogant, or downright ignorant.

Also, though I found this a gripping read, I am not sure how useful it is for readers who hope to use Foo’s journey as a template for their own healing. I read this book from a different research angle, hoping it would help me write more realistically about characters with trauma, and in this regard I cannot say it was particularly helpful. Overall, What My Bones Know is less about sharing wisdom that may enable readers to find their own healing, and more about the author’s individual journey. In some ways, I think this might actually be grim reading for other people affected by c-PTSD, since Foo’s treatment plan so obviously benefitted from her relative wealth and journalistic connections. Many of the resources this book mentions are simply not accessible to the average person living with c-PTSD. I also feel that Foo irresponsibly glamorises her experiences with shrooms.

In places, the book gets a little naval-gazey and repetitive. Despite her brutal self-awareness, Foo comes across somewhat immature and spoilt. However, there is no denying her courageous tenacity and earnest desire for self-improvement. The will to thrive is what gives this book its strength and character. Ultimately, whilst I cannot rate this as the best autobiography or the most informative case study on c-PTSD, I think it is an excellent motivational text. Foo might be a divisive character, but What My Bones Know remains a moving, inspiring testament to a very determined person’s fight to make something good of their life.

Review: Gail Honeyman’s ‘Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine’

★★★☆☆

Did I like this book? A simple question, but I am still searching for the answer. I cannot remember ever having such mixed feelings about a read. Based on the description, I expected Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine to be funny, even lighter-than-air, and though in some ways that is what I got, the overall vibe this book channels is one of such tragicomedy that I cannot fairly shelve it as a simple, breezy read. Upon reflection, I have reduced my initial four star rating to a shaky three, because boy-oh-boy do I think this book has problems.

One thing is for sure: it will take a long time for Eleanor Oliphant’s voice to leave my head. The verbosity! The narrative is first person, which is unfortunate, because Eleanor has a grating, fresh-from-1803 way of describing her experiences. Why say you had a few pints when you can instead declare you have imbibed excessive fluids of recreational inebriation? That is not a direct quote, but you get the idea. A modern character pretending as though they live in an Austen novel would be gimmicky and annoying even if they were limited to dialogue alone, and it took only a few sentences before I found Eleanor’s internal monologue nauseating.

However, I am glad I gritted my teeth and pressed onward. As the narrative progressed, I found myself developing a more sympathetic understanding of this eccentric character, and gradually warmed to her unconventional charms.

These days, loneliness is the new cancer – a shameful, embarrassing thing, brought upon yourself in some obscure way. A fearful, incurable thing, so horrifying that you dare not mention it; other people don’t want to hear the word spoken aloud for fear that they might too be afflicted, or that it might tempt fate into visiting a similar horror upon them.

The crux of it is, however, that it turns out I definitely did not understand this book. Honeyman has made a point of stating that ‘Eleanor isn’t anywhere on the [autism] spectrum… She is the product of nurture, not nature; traumatic events in her childhood have shaped her.’¹ To me this strikes as a peculiar distinction, because if Eleanor is not in any way autistic, Honeyman’s portrayal sure gave me a firm impression to the contrary. Eleanor is mathematical, obsessive and socially inept, and demonstrates little ability to relate to the feelings of others. Overall, her behaviour ticks a number of boxes that align with high-functioning autism, and few which could ever have led me to the conclusion that what Eleanor actually has is complex PTSD.

Whilst in hindsight, I can see some of her personality can be accounted for as the result of a traumatic childhood, I found it difficult to match Eleanor’s struggles in reading social norms, and her hapless naïveté, with trauma and depression. Also, I did not like the implication that all the quirks of Eleanor’s personality were produced by horror. True, she is an odd young woman, but harmlessly, endearingly so. To me, the notion that all of this is a by-product of abuse seemed muddled and unaccepting, or far too varnished a perspective on the consequences of trauma.

I explained the benefits of a travel pass to him, including where one could purchase such item and how many journeys one needed to take in order to break even or, indeed, to effectively travel for free. He did not seem particularly interested, and did not even thank me when I had finished. He is a spectacularly unsophisticated conversationalist.

Do not let the cover and the gentle humour fool you. This is a dark book, and packs some gut-wrenching punches. I think the main issue is that it tries to cover too much, however. Eleanor is used as a literary vessel to discuss PTSD, depression, trauma, child abuse, stalking, complex bereavement, suicide, loneliness, and even substance abuse. These are all major themes, so fundamental to the shaping of a character that they are impossible to deal with merely in passing. The lack of focus on any one of these issues makes for a disjointed, unrealistic narrative that I found increasingly senseless.

The portrayal of substance abuse is a particularly strange one, as Eleanor drinks 2-3 litres of vodka every weekend, getting through her free time only by maintaining a state of blackout-level drunkenness. Somehow, she goes to work on Mondays without a hangover, and stays sober the entire working week. I just found it unbelievable that anyone so guileless and innocent would have any real chance of hiding this behaviour, never mind there being no mention of the deteriorating state of her organs.

As a final point, the ending is divisive. I thought the twist was cheesy, and the fact I did not see it coming still annoys me, because what course should I have expected this book to take other than the ridiculous? I really do not know which side of the fence to sit on, so the bottom line is this: I enjoyed Eleanor on the surface, but the more I think about the subtext, the murkier my opinion becomes.

1. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/gail-honeyman-hope-eleanor-oliphant-has-helped-fuel-debate-loneliness/

Review: Candice Carty-Williams’ ‘Queenie’

★★★☆☆

Queenie was not what I expected. A bestseller, this novel has been touted as the ‘black Bridget Jones’, which is puzzling, because it bears no resemblance to the 90s rom-com.

For one thing, this is not a funny book, unless you find humour in an unlikeable person’s self-destructive habits. For me, it was difficult to laugh along with 25-year-old Londoner, Queenie, because I found her characterisation unpleasant. She comes across insensitive and self-absorbed, and never really grows beyond this.

Taken at the narrator’s word, this novel can perhaps be dismissed as a rather catty piece of ‘chick lit’, but as we journey away from the bland inception point (‘my boyfriend and I are on a break’), it eventually deepens into a portrayal of a flawed character struggling with anxiety. Mostly, anyway. At times this novel seems to attempt the more ambitious task of showing the life of the average black British woman. In this aspect, I found it reductive. Queenie leans heavily on stereotypes, and in striving to speak for all, it doesn’t say much for anyone.

Were my drunk ears and eyes deceiving me? What could ‘couple goals’ be arguing about? … I knelt on the floor by the door and leaned against a pile of wax jackets to get comfortable. It’s not every day that you see the perfect pair disintegrate before your eyes.

The best thing about this book is the prose, because it is incredibly readable. 400 pages never went so fast, and that in spite of the fact I struggled to find a place in my heart for the protagonist. Carty-Williams knows how to make a story flow, and there are no distracting word choices, keeping things as smooth as a thread pulled taut. However, the plot is weak, relying on Queenie’s lack of common sense. As she fell into pitfall after pitfall, I found the narrative wearying. It is a convincing portrayal of a person heading for a mental health crisis, but funny? I couldn’t see it. 

Occasionally, Queenie manages to get away from herself to dip her toe into social activism, and the book uses this to explain the legitimacy of the BLM movement. In many ways, I felt that Carty-Williams also wrote Queenie as a love letter to the black community of London, which is done well. It’s just unfortunate there is not more of this, and less of Queenie harrumphing about her family and friends as they live their own lives, still offering her unconditional support. The idea that they might have their own problems and expect any kind of acknowledgement is viewed with something like outrage.

The book is in places sensitive, and touches on a few of the stigmas surrounding mental health issues, but its protagonist sinks its higher ideals by navigating the world like a petulant child. It is true that trauma can make a person treat their loved ones badly without communicating why, but for Queenie there is never any fallout, ignoring one of the hardest things about mental illness – its potential to isolate a person by sabotaging their relationships.

‘Is it going to make me feel better, to talk about this?’ I asked.

‘Not immediately,’ Janet replied. ‘But it needs to come out.’

Another thing that got to me was the portrayal of sex. For one thing, I felt this book was uncomfortably unclear on the distinction between ‘rough’ and non-consensual sex. For another, it made me cringe so much that my soul was almost squeezed from body. When it comes to any discussion of intimacy, Queenie is a sharer, and the secondhand embarrassment as she detailed her liaisons was too much for me. However, I am forced to mention it in order to tell you anything else about her. Other than a list of her opinions on various aspects of rough sex that she does not actually encounter, Queenie offers scant indication of its protagonist’s hobbies and interests.

All in all, this was a very mixed bag. The novel presents some challenging and worthy ideas, but it lacks the complexity to weigh them. Enjoyable writing is weighed down by a frustrating protagonist. I don’t think this is a bad book, but it has so little fibre. If a book is concerned with gritty topics like mental illness and systemic racism, I expect substance and texture, which I could not find here.

There is one final issue, which is that this book fits into the category of ‘read-it-now-or-never’. There are numerous references to current events and social media, so much so that it already feels a step behind the times.

Review: Ottessa Moshfegh’s ‘My Year of Rest and Relaxation’

★★★★☆

I’ll start by saying that this was a fantastic read.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation is an acidic book, laced with so much sarcastic, bitter humour that it almost set my teeth on edge. The premise is simple. It is the year 2000, Upper Manhattan. A nameless young woman narrates her attempt to find spiritual rebirth by sleeping off her demons for an entire year.

Though we never know her name, she is a distinctive protagonist. She is a model-thin natural blonde WASP, too rich to worry about money, but also a hollowed out wreck of a person, so disassociated from her emotions and the world that it is difficult to view her privilege as anything meaningful.

The thing I really liked about this book is that there are so many ways to read it. On one level, it is a dark comedy dressed up as chick lit. On another, it is a painful journey through a young woman’s tortured soul. It is a story about a toxic, complicated friendship, a satire on privilege and the art world, and also a philosophical exploration of all the problems money can fix, as well as those it can’t.

Whenever I woke up, night or day, I’d shuffle through the bright marble foyer of my building and go up the block and around the corner where there was a bodega that never closed. I’d get two large coffees with cream and six sugars each, chug the first one in the elevator on the way back up to my apartment, then sip the second one slowly while I watched movies and ate animal crackers and took trazodone and Ambien and Nembutal until I fell asleep again.

It is really easy to read, but there is surprising depth when you look for it. The narrator’s deadpan voice sometimes has the effect of glazing over how shocking the narrative is, but I think this is on purpose – it gives the reading experience parallels with the protagonist’s journey.

The tone pulls you under, but every so often I would kind of snap out of the book, like a sudden awakening, realise how grotesque the whole thing was, before diving back into the oblivion the protagonist spends her year navigating.

Rest and Relaxation is an ugly book. The humour is like a thick cake of makeup on bad acne. The barbed sarcasm actually draws attention to that which the character uses it to hide. I thought this was clever writing, and I liked that this book was about someone with serious flaws. The selfishness is ugly, and so is the sadistic way in which the narrator uses her best friend (and allows herself to be used in return). I think it’s meant to be vicious though. This isn’t a feel-good book about an upstanding person trying to get through their trauma without hurting anyone. Although it brims with the frivolousness of a life with too much money, it is, under that veneer, a cutting story about a person dismissing the pretensions of morality in a dogged effort to survive.

Reva scratched an itch that, on my own, I couldn’t reach. Watching her take what was deep and real and painful and ruin it by expressing it with such trite precision gave me reason to think that Reva was an idiot, and therefore I could discount her pain, and with it, mine.

I was gripped, and though I got through this book at record pace, it left my brain with a lot to chew on. I would agree it is problematic and provocative, even insensitive, but I think that is what makes it so good. The protagonist is a top-notch antihero – she gives the reader every reason to despise her, but somehow I just couldn’t. Definitely not the kind of person I would want as my friend, but a character whose poison makes them interesting, a bit like Charlize Theron in the movie Young Adult.

I probably would have given this one the full five stars, but having slept on it, I’m not sure about the ending. There is an odd little epilogue that takes the final page on a jarring handbrake turn. It just didn’t seem to flow on naturally from the rest of the book, and I couldn’t work it out.

Overall though, I really rate this one. It has teeth, it is intelligent, and it is a fascinatingly warped story of growth. Whether our narrator is a better person by the end is debatable, but she and her world have changed.