I spent a lot of the first half of this book being annoyed at how the author was seemingly unaware of her family’s immense privilege. To those readers who come from families with histories of severe mental illness, and who, seeing the title of the book, expected to feel kinship with another family’s struggles, it’s hard to find that here. For most, the opportunity to be kicked out of a country club for failure to pay dues is not relatable, as one of many examples. Though they had massive problems with tragic consequences, their family remained loving, supportive, and close. Much of the family history is filled with anecdotes about the times she lived in. “We played outside unsupervised until the streetlights came on” and other cliches. We have far fewer anecdotes about the actual realities of living with someone experiencing a psychotic break.

It is in the last third of the book, where the author begins to cover the failure of the mental health system in her journalism where the book redeemed itself, and became incredibly moving and informative. Her telling of how she retrieved her family history was also a good read.