Thorogood elevates the dark material with her expressive use of the comics medium and the urgency of her voice. Often these scenes are painful; a lot of us have these moments, though seldom to the same degree, and of course even this sometimes touches a raw nerve for Thorogood, being told her work is "relatable" while feeling "like an alien in human skin".

Thorogood's courageous honesty is supported by her hilarious deadpan humor and then tied all together by her absolutely insane artistic vision. The book isn't really "about" anything, so if you can stifle those expectations, you will enjoy it more.It's a good place to get to, but it does illustrate the overall slightness of the narrative, in that whilst the artistic endeavour of the book (hopefully) acted as a literal self-help guide for the author, as readers the less self-absorbed, more engaged-with-other-peoples'-realities person she trails at the end of the book is the author who might, in the end, give us more gifts. Some might be quick to dismiss some of the book as naval-gazing or too much pop philosophy, I think that those aspects are some of what makes it work best. There is a frenetic energy that roars forward through this highly metafictional memoir experiment that would feel twee or already well-trodden in lesser hands but becomes this incredible work that feels just as messy and lovely as real life should be.

This book is presented as an autobiography, and much of it is the author trying to find material to fill the book - and much of the material she finds is her own mental state.Because it is self-conscious about that too, with Thorogood following up bold statements like ‘ Reading a book, hearing a song, observing a painting—that’s connection.