My Mess Is a Bit of a Life: Adventures in Anxiety

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Although the sense of humor is on point, it sometimes feels claustrophobic to put yourself in the author's shoes. Georgia has a way of bringing the reader into this world she's created in her head, holding your hand and guiding you through this messy life and making you feel everything with them.

Home to William Golding, Sylvia Plath, Kazuo Ishiguro, Sally Rooney, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Max Porter, Ingrid Persaud, Anna Burns and Rachel Cusk, among many others, Faber is proud to publish some of the greatest novelists from the early twentieth century to today. Though I don't have the successful career she has had, a lot of it resonated as she talked about her childhood, family, school, college, personal relationships and professional career and anxiety weaving its way through all of those. In the end, you get a picture of a woman who is, in many ways, like you and me with her shortcomings, stress, joys, and everything in between. I’ll share with you some of the most memorable moments for me, only a small samples you understand – as I don’t want to spoil the whole book, in case you read it (….

I raced through it, reading bits to anyone who would listen along the way, and I’m already thinking about a reread! Going into labor, she fretted about making a fuss ("Sorry to interrupt, but the baby is coming out of my body," I said politely).

I liked the anecdotal style as I felt it was reflective of an anxious overthinking brain so it felt right. This memoir is a joyful reflection on just how to live – and sometimes even thrive (sometimes not) – with anxiety.to embracing womanhood, ( One way of knowing you have crossed from girlhood to womanhood is that men stop furtively masturbating at you from bushes and start shouting things at you from cars. Some of the stories were not particularly funny at all and were instead sad and serious, so if you were looking for something to cheer you up about anxiety, something that holds funny the entire time, this might not be the right collection for you. There are some great running jokes – Bob Dylan’s every appearance made me snort with laughter – but there is also real warmth in the descriptions. Pritchett is self-deprecating to the maximum – For example, I love the way she describes her shoulders as “Muppet Shoulders”.