Instant #1 Bestseller
The powerhouse New York Times bestselling author and Harvard-trained neuroscientist returns with a breathless, exhilarating, and heartbreaking novel about a young woman diagnosed with bipolar disorder and the ripple effects her mental health has on her family and her pursuit of a career in stand-up comedy.
Maddy Banks is just like any other stressed-out freshman at NYU. Between heaps of homework, finals, and navigating life in the city, it’s normal to be feeling the pressure. It doesn’t help that she’s always felt like the odd one out in her “perfect” Connecticut family: her blonde, toned, and tanned mother; her flawless, high-achieving, engaged sister, Emily; and her always popular, athletic, easygoing brother, Jack. Yet lately, Maddy’s highs seem dizzyingly high, and the lows seem terrifyingly low. Suddenly, the things that used to make her happy are becoming harder and harder to grasp.
When a spontaneous visit to a comedy club opens her eyes to a new hobby just as her mental health begins to spiral and an incident at a family Thanksgiving dinner leads to a terrifying breaking point—and to a new diagnosis—Maddy’s life starts to look quite different. As she struggles to accept her bipolar disorder and attempts to navigate her burgeoning stand-up career, she’ll have to figure out how to manage being both too much and not enough.
A poignant roller coaster ride through Maddy’s experience with BPD
"This is an excellent and heartbreaking account of a young woman suffering with the roller coaster bipolar disorder. The book takes the reader through the diagnostic phase, the mania and depressive episodes that define Maddy’s life including how her family and close friends try to stay in relationship with her as she struggles with this unrelenting mental illness. The last few chapters had me crying and cheering for Maddy and then crying again. Being labelled as the illness versus having the illness will give many readers food for thought and we can reflect on the larger medical model system and its impact on what we, as a society, decides is “normal. ”"
