Reasons to Stay Alive Book Review

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Reasons to Stay Alive is the self-help-cum-memoir book of Matt Haig. As the title suggests, in this book Haig does his best to use his experiences with anxiety and depression to help those reading see how he got through it, and how he lives with them today. When he was 24, he found himself wanting to commit suicide, and in writing this book, he tries to explain why he didn’t.

This is not a light-read, and I don’t think Haig intended it to be either. It’s honest and raw, but that’s what makes it good. I liked how it was broken up into sections – not only does it make it easier to digest, but it also allows a reader to dip in and out very easily, especially if they need to put it down for a while if they find anything mentioned triggering.

Self-help books can be hard to get right because the rely on both the author’s experiences being relatable, but also how the author uses them to give good advice. I think it’s safe to say that Haig gives the best advice in this book, and while we know (and he is very aware) that everyone’s experience with their mental health is not the same, he acknowledges that while doing his best to convince those reading that they can get through it.

And that, I think, is what makes this book beautiful; Haig didn’t write it with the ambition of it becoming successful or lucrative – he wrote it to help (at the very least) one person with whom could unfortunately relate with his story. His message throughout is unwavering: yes, depression and anxiety, and all mental health challenges are awful, but you can get through it!

Haig’s honesty is what makes this book what it is – without his candour, there’s a risk of this book just becoming very bland without any depth. He doesn’t pretend that it’s all plain sailing for him now, and he doesn’t pretend that when he was at his lowest, it was anywhere close to easy. Anyone and everyone will be able to read this book and take something away, and that alone is what makes it succeed.