Obsessive, Intrusive, Magical Thinking: A Life Lived Obsessively

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Fascinating, especially in a world which wants us neurodivergent women to have only one of two types of experiences.

You can’t help but feel this style is influenced by the “wellness” idiom that has percolated through lifestyle journalism in the past decade or so. a really good portrayal of neurodiversity in an entertaining and enjoyable way' * Eleanor, NetGalley * Lyrical, often funny, .I find it endlessly grating to read some iteration of “I had no money” when on the same page the author speaks of years spent jetting off to faraway places for months on end, living in Brighton and London, name-dropping celebrities she had breakfast with in LA, yada yada. It’s probably more my own problem with desperately wanting someone’s experiences to mirror mine, but I feel like the first part of this book was like “listen to me, I’m like you, you try to hard to find people who can relate to you and FINALLY here’s one, you’re not alone” and then the rest of the book made me think “nah, scratch that, this person isn’t like me and it’s making me feel like a failure for not being able to do the things she’s doing, also, how is she managing to do them? Thank you to NetGalley, Marianne Eloise and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. There is a common thread throughout the essays of embracing who you are, learning to be gentle with yourself, and pursuing what brings you peace. I felt very seen by it, but a lot of the essays fell very flat for me and I wanted much more from them.

I felt recognised on every page, learned so many new things, and laughed so hard I choked on my water. This is a personal memoir of OCD, autism and ADHD, in the form of a series of short, unconnected essays on subjects like time, death, Disney (special interests… if you know, you know!Would I sometimes like to soften my sensory processing issues, wear anything other than cotton without having a screaming fit? I’ve lived with it (and probably autism too) for my whole life and I find that one of the worst things about it is struggling to communicate the horrors of it to other people; other people don’t know what OCD is and they don’t care to try to understand it. She covers topics like TV, film, digital culture, neurodiversity, wellness and alternative music, for outlets including The Cut, the New York Times, Courier, Vulture, i-D, Guardian and more. For years, the author flinches at public water (it’s unhygienic), recoils from images of Medusa’s scowl (gorgons turn people into stone), and is compelled to perform arbitrary tasks like burning calories and checking plug sockets to prevent catastrophe. Long Live the New Flesh” opens with a cryptic poem the author wrote back in 2016: “There’s a television in my stomach / and I watch it nightly / at odds with my own body / as it shrinks, fades away.