Maybe This Will Help: How to Feel Better When Things Stay the Same by Michelle Rial

 

MAYBE THIS WILL HELP is the follow-up to AM I OVERTHINKING THIS? While her first book was about anxiety and stress, the focus of MAYBE is about grief and chronic pain. With gentle humor and emotionality, she gives advice for self-care and coping, while also validating the whole spectrum of feelings that come with not being okay.

I liked this book and appreciated the creativity of the charts, just like I did in the first book. This book is less humorous though (obviously) and features little essays about how she felt over the loss of his father, during the fires and quarantine of 2020, and also a low-point where she was experiencing severe pain while being overworked. Part of healing can come from representation and feeling seen, so I think that these more painful passages were crucial, even if they made the book less "fun" to read.

That said, I didn't quite enjoy this book as much as the first. The formatting didn't translate quite as well to Kindle and the type was very small and hard to read. The essays also didn't always tie into the charts that came before and after, and I would have liked a little more cohesion if she was going to go for this mixed-media sort of vibe, like Allie Brosh. I also think that the title doesn't quite convey how different in tone this book is to her first book, and people who don't know what they're getting into might be unpleasantly shocked or triggered, especially if they are dealing with fresh grief.

3 out of 5 stars