Easy Crafts for the Insane: A Mostly Funny Memoir of Mental Illness and Making Things by Kelly Williams Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“It is following good mental health hygiene—which is the real self-care, although it’s so, so boring! It is cultivating contentment rather than chasing happiness.”
I have never heard of Kelly Williams Brown before this book. I have not read her previous books and I think I was drawn to this book because it mentioned crafts. As a crafty person, I have to say that most of the crafts in this story are simple and not anything to write home about. But I still read them all because Kelly’s humor is all over them and it’s fabulous.
I loved her voice throughout this whole book. The way she talks about her life and her mistakes and things that happen to her and the way she describes the people in her life (even those who abandon her or whom she abandons) is magical. She clearly is a person full of life and joy.
“The guy tells me what he says he tells everyone he transports in my current circumstances: he hopes that I take this as an opportunity to rest, to reset, to try again. That it is never too late for anyone, and if I’m still here, there’s a reason. He guesses everyone needs a break every now and again. I should take the break and make the most of it. I should take it and use it to figure out what it is I’m still here to do.”
I kept cringing for most of this book because she makes one mistake after another and really pushes her life into places where you want to shout “no, don’t do that!” and it’s like watching a car accident. but you also can’t help but be in love with her and root for her and want to wish her the very best.
“I hadn’t realized how very dark and small my world had become. I’d dropped each joy, one by one, not noticing they were gone or really remembering I’d had them at all. I stopped listening to music, stopped dancing, stopped going on country drives. I stopped enjoying food, found no pleasure in good company, but instead a temporary lessening of misery, which made me a super-fun presence. Depression is so talented at turning you from a foodie into someone who wishes they could just eat a compressed nutrition bar every day, except about everything.”
Because her personality is so colorful, her vitality is so obvious that you can’t help but wish well for her. And there’s so much emotion and truth in her words. There’s so much wisdom in the lessons she learns as a result of ongoing insanity that has become her life for a while.
“So perhaps here is the point of it all, my precious plums: bad things happen for good reasons or bad reasons or no reasons at all, to all of us. There is nothing to be done about it except perhaps breathe, abide, and hold on to the faith that no matter how awful today was, you never have to live it again.”
And in the end there’s so much peace and grace and self-compassion that you are left with nothing but hope for her and her life. I enjoyed every moment i spent with this story. I will say the chapters around suicide are hard to get through and can definitely trigger folk.
with gratitude to netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP Putnam for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
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