Monkey Mind by Daniel B. Smith {Thoughts On}

Title: Monkey Mind, a Memoir of Anxiety
Author: Daniel Smith
Pages: 212
Rating: 3 stars

Summary from Goodreads:

In the insightful narrative tradition of Oliver Sacks, Monkey Mind is an uplifting, smart, and very funny memoir of life with anxiety—America’s most common psychological complaint.

Daniel Smith’s Monkey Mind is the stunning articulation of what it is like to live with anxiety. As he travels through anxiety’s demonic layers, Smith defangs the disorder with great humor and evocatively expresses its self-destructive absurdities and painful internal coherence. Aaron Beck, the most influential doctor in modern psychotherapy, says that “Monkey Mind does for anxiety what William Styron’s Darkness Visible did for depression.” Neurologist and bestselling writer Oliver Sacks says, “I read Monkey Mind with admiration for its bravery and clarity….I broke out into explosive laughter again and again.” Here, finally, comes relief and recognition to all those who want someone to put what they feel, or what their loved ones feel, into words. 

I read this one during the Winter Biannual Bibliothon for the read a book about mental illness challenge. This one caught my eye because it was supposedly so funny. Not so much. There were a couple of amusing stories but for the most part I cringed throughout this book. I went from cringing at things that should have stayed private to being a bit bored with all the history about anxiety that he learned in his journey. I feel like this one would be better for someone NOT suffering with anxiety. I understood much of the symptoms he described and was hoping for more insight into how he "fixed" himself. The cover made it sound like it was hilarious but most of the book was quite boring - lots of name dropping of authors and the like that didn't move forward the book to me. I highly enjoyed the last chapter which is why I rated it a 3 instead of a 4 though.