Heather B. ArmstrongReseñas

I came to Heather's book having been a fan of her writing for over 15 years. With this experience, I fully expected to 100% connect to her words - especially about mental health. While I never suffered as long as she did (I have always been lucky that a medication change or the guidance of a new therapist could get me out of the darkness) the way she describes her suffering is so poignant and truthful it hit me in ways I couldn't have prepared myself for, even as someone who has been reading her for as long as I have.

But what made me sob openly was story after story of the unconditional love associated with Motherhood. FIRST: from her point of view. From the ways she tried to suffer silently to the eventual struggling through this new treatment to get better (on top of being a single Mom with a full-time job) for her girls. The way Heather writes about the desperation of Mothering her girls with unquantifiable love just spoke to my soul in ways I had never felt before.

But SECOND was the way she wrote about her own Mom and her journey watching her daughter's brain turn "off" for 15 minutes 10 separate times. The way her Mom describes Heather's courage, the way she witnesses Heather's journey, the way she answers Heather's calls and hold her hand...it's just something you have to read for yourself.

This book is definitely about depression and I encourage anyone who has struggled to understand a loved one who suffers from depression to read this book. Heather is such a gifted writer that you can FEEL her despair as she describes it. And then when life comes back to her again, you will feel it through her words in very visceral ways.

But to me - it also very much about Motherhood. It made me understand myself as a Mother so much more and it made me grateful for the opportunity to love my children the way Heather loves her girls and the way Heather is loved by her Mother.

Wow...just...wow.

This wasn't an easy book to listen to, especially with the author narrating it. Her pain, her desperation comes through loud and clear. I can't tell you how often her words choked me up, made me tear up, or simply destroyed me.

I've gone through depression and anxiety, but nothing close to the level Armstrong details here. I do, however, know people who have been as low as this, as suicidal as this. Some made it through, some didn't. Armstrong's story, her unrelenting travelogue through the darkness opened up vistas of understanding for me that I'd never considered before.

The treatment aspect of the story is important, because of the result, but it's the insights along the way that are incredibly important for anyone who wants to try and understand what a person suffering from suicidal thoughts and depression are going through.

Just...wow. Thank you for this book, Heather. I'm glad I read it.

I have known of Heather Armstrong as a blogger but have never read one of her books until now. I thought The Valedictorian of Being Dead was an incredible story and I am so happy that she shared it because mental health treatment is just as important as physical health. I had never heard of this treatment before and I think it is wonderful that she is helping normalize this by sharing.

I had a harder time with the memoir aspect of this book because of the details that she chooses to share about her family members. I did admire that she was able to share so opening what it truly felt like to experience depression that was deeply debilitating on many levels and I was happy to hear her parents were so supportive of her during this time as well.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for providing me with a copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

In this book blogger dooce-Heather B Armstrong recounts undergoing an experimental treatment for depression where she was basically put into a death like coma repeatedly to try and jump start her brain back to healthy. The book is personal and readable like her blog. The description of depression & it's effects will be relatable for many people.

I don't generally read "mommy blogs" so I wasn't familiar with Heather at all. I accepted the advance copy because so many people in my family suffer from depression and I thought that reading her profoundly personal story might give me a clearer picture of what life is like at the bottom of the depression pit. It's not great, even if you have family support and money. Heather is pretty funny about the entire situation in a believable way.
I think it is so important to be open and honest about mental health issues and not sweep them under the rug. This book will go a long way towards that end.

This is an amazing true story about depression, motherhood, asking for help, and an experimental treatment that saved the author's life. I suffered from postpartum depression, have close family members with depression, and have studied depression in my formal training, but I still think Armstrong is one of our best resources on the topic. I'm grateful she's still with us and that she was able to write this book.

I had never heard of this young woman before reading this book. I've since learned she is a well known mommy blogger. So it is natural for her to write down her thoughts, and to share them with the world. Depression is an insidious disease, one I don't suffer from, though a few people very close to me have at one time or another in their lives.

In this candid memoir, Heather, chronicles her life during an eighteen month bout of a severe depression. As the single parent to two daughter, she simply wanted it all to end. The day to day struggle, the constant chores, she couldn't envision a time when she would feel happy. She loved her girls, knew deep down she needed to be around for them, yet knowing and feeling are two very different things.

In desperation she agrees to become part of a study, only the third participant. This is the story of her days, glimpses of her past, and the treatment she undertakes. Mental illness still has such a stigma attached, and this played into her fears as well. She has a wonderful mother and step father who were with her during every treatment and beyond. Family support is crucial. This country, among many I'm sure, need better psychiatric care, easier to attain and pay for. Awareness is key.

ARC from Edelweiss.

I think you need to know Heather's back story (i.e. be a long-time reader of her blog) to fully appreciate this book. For me, it filled in all the personal gaps her blog left out - what really happened between her and her husband Jon, why she was so depressed, what was going on when the blog deteriorated into shills for products or diatribes against her vitriolic critics. I don't follow her blog as often now, because the writing, a sort of stream-of-consciousness laced with profanity, seems lazy to me. I was worried the book would be the same, but was pleasantly surprised. The writing is very good, but also very accessible.

It was, finally, so honest, so wrenching, and also so hopeful. Heather, I truly hope it lasts, because you have so many riches in your life.

Disclosure: I received a review copy.

I think I started reading memoirs centered on mental health well over ten years ago because books like The Glass Castle and Prozac Nation were book club picks. I've read a few more since then, but I'm by no means an expert in the genre. The Valedictorian of Being Dead centers on Armstrong's experimental therapy for severe depression that involved extreme anesthesia instead of electroconvulsive therapy. She's pretty explicit about her reasons for writing the book: she wants to eliminate the stigma around depression and explain what depression and treatment felt like for her. It makes for rough reading, but it's also fascinating to hear about the experimental trial and her positive response to it.

This is collection of essays about dads in general, written from various perspectives by a wide collection of popular (I assume) internet bloggers: Some of them speak about their dads or the dads they are married to, and others write about being dads themselves. It starts out awesomely, too! The first 2-3 essay are hilarious and heart-warming, and I was super excited to get to the rest of the book.

Unfortunately, it goes downhill about midway through the book. The humor disappears and the book becomes a clout of nauseating sentimentality. Oh, don't take that the wrong way, the stories were sweet and wonderful to read...for awhile. It just become very repetitive, as it felt like everyone was saying essentially the same thing and reading it over and over in 15-page durations quickly grew tedious for me.

Ironically, the author I liked the least is the editor of the book. Both of her stories were terribly uninteresting, the first of which was a thin guise for what comes off as a platform for her apparent narcissistic feminist agenda. She celebrates her husband's being a stay-at-home dad by saying that she does the job better and she's happy when he has a hard time of things. I believe, in my country at least, the stay-at-home dad is something that will become increasingly common as the job market continues to lean in favor women, and I think this is a pretty awesome thing. There are few things about my country that inspires pride in me, but this is one of them. It's unfortunate to see someone being vindictive and developing a superior attitude like this. It's just icky, horrible, and terribly discouraging.

this is a funny book by a talented writer. i am impressed that she was able to so perfectly put into words the experience of taking care of an infant. whenever i try to describe it, words fail me and all i can come up with is, "it is so hard". but she manages to explain why it's hard with great honesty, feeling, and wit. it was an added bonus that i laughed out loud at least once per chapter. highly recommended for parents, though i have a feeling that many non-parents would enjoy it too.

Definitely hilarious. A little one-dimensional. It read pretty much the same way her blog reads, and despite the structure (nine months of pregnancy, the first nine months after the baby's birth), it doesn't really have a story arc. Worth reading for the laughs, and for a heads-up about the things they (apparently) don't tell you...

Screamingly funny, heartbreakingly honest... Heather Armstrong has a remarkable way with words and a willingness to let it all hang out in the interest of both entertaining and letting us know that we are not alone. Everyone who has ever been in love, been pregnant, become a parent, suffered from depression will recognizeherself in Heather. I have seldom laughed so hard or empathized with suffering so much. A thoroughly engrossing and entertaining book.

Funny at times but a bit disjointed.

Heather Armstrong gives us a funny and truthful look into her life as a first time mother.

After her baby's birth, Armstrong suffered from Postpartum depression and spent a short stay in a mental hospital. While I enjoyed all of the book, I could not truly relate to her role as mother, as I am not one. But I related deeply to her battle with depression, trying many different medications until something worked, and her stay in the mental hospital. It was hopeful to see she found a doctor who got her on the right medication and helped her through the tough time.

Reading this book, I became a fan of Heather's humorous writing and started visiting her blog, which I had never heard. I think this is a book, and a blog, everyone could enjoy.

This is Heather B. Armstrong's memoir of getting pregnant, going through pregnancy, giving birth, living with a baby, and having post-partum depression. I was expecting more of a focus on post-partum depression, but the book was good for what it was about. Armstrong is a strong writer who doesn't hold back, and that candor is invaluable when writing about topics like pregnancy, birth, and motherhood. I think this is a valuable book to have in our culture. Not to mention, it's quite funny.

Readers of dooce.com should probably be aware that I'd already read some of these things on the website, but there was enough added and enough different to make it worth reading again.

I. Love. Dooce.

Eh. That's about all I can say about it. This book is a collection of essays by different writers/bloggers. A few were very good; thoughtful, touching, or downright hilarious. Most were flat, boring, or non-sensical.If you live the rest of your life without reading this book, you can die happy. You haven't missed anything.

Written with Dooce's trademark sardonicism, honesty, and CAPITAL LETTERS FOR HUMOUR, this book shouldn't disappoint anyone who is a fan of the blog. However, it read a little differently than I'd expected. The book is billed as a description of how she suffered through postpartum depression and got the help she needed to be healthy again and reconnect with her family. Armstrong is honest about needing help, and about the physical pain of labor, childbirth, and post-partum body; she states clearly that she couldn't feel happy or connect with her child well, felt defeated and overwhelmed, and makes oblique references to acting out in her depression. But in spite of all this - maybe because of the tone, or the lack of details, it's hard to really feel that come through in the book, which ends up being mostly a hilarious tale of what it's like to raise a baby, and occasionally a moment of honesty and defiance of the idea that she should be quiet about her struggles. It's an enjoyable book, but not one that really conveys to you how the author felt or what it might be like to live with that kind of depression.

I had been reading Dooce's blog for awhile and usually found it pretty entertaining, so I thought I'd for sure like this book. Turns out though, not so much. It just seemed so whiny to me that I actually found it unpleasant to read. Can't say I would recommend this one.½

I've been a fan of Armstrong's DOOCE blog for years. While I remember her announcing that this book had been published (and a second one has, too), it was in one ear and out of mind . . . until I found the volume on the New Books shelf of my local library.
This book reminded me of why I find myself checking DOOCE daily (usually multiple times each day). Armstrong is consistently both entertaining and insightful. She gives me my needed fix of what it's like to be a person who copes with life even when she thinks she can't. And while I'm not a woman, a mother, married, or a recovering Mormon, I identify with her.

The first half or so of the book was a delight. It had just about the perfect balance of funny and touching stories. But then somewhere midway through, the tone shifts substantially, and the stories range from boring to somewhat disturbing.

To me, this was the baby memoir to end all baby memoirs. Nothing that I've read before, or since, compares to this. Especially Jenny McCarthy's baby book, which I read about 20 pages of before realizing she's not nearly as funny as she thinks she is, and then I couldn't put up with her anymore.
The title of this one is misleading, because it doesn't focus as much on her postpartum depression as it does on the journey as a whole, but the journey is a freaking riot. She's so snarky, and it's not often that a book makes me laugh out loud and then I'm dying to tell my husband what the heck I'm laughing at. I ate this book up and was totally bummed when it was over.

If you like Heather Armstrong's blog, you'll probably like this book. If you have been a regular reader of dooce.com for a long time, you'll probably already know most of the stories in this book. Heather talks about poop a lot.

Heather Armstrong has a wonderful sense of humor, an outrageous outspokenness and tremendous courage and honesty. She shares in this memoir her profound love for her family and her understanding that she herself must be healthy so that all their lives, including hers, can be good. I laughed and cried and I loved this book - but read it yourself before you suggest it to someone anticipating or experiencing pregnancy and new motherhood.