No One Gets to Fall Apart: A Memoir

I can understand why Sarah LaBrie doesn't focus her memoir exclusively on her mother Kimberly's serious mental illness. Although the passages describing the beatings Sarah endured as a child and Kimberly's paranoid, psychotic behavior are horrifying (as is the rest of her family's denial of her illness), Sarah isn't defined solely by those Mommie Dearest moments. But the sad truth is that LaBrie's life just isn't that noteworthy otherwise. She's struggling to write a novel, she has mixed emotions about her best friend's rising fame, she can't understand how her white boyfriend radiates such steady confidence. (He's a white man, Sarah. ‘Nuff said.) The information about philosopher Walter Benjamin that is incorporated into her narrative gives off serious MFA thesis vibes but feels out of place.

I give LaBrie major props for exploring the complicated relationship between Black people and the mental health profession. But there's a lot of filler for a brief 200-page book.