1 out of 4 stars
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Why? is a non-fiction novel by Joseph Hempsey, a true account of the author's life, his bout with depression, and his quest for elusive happiness. Born in Scotland, the author has had a harrowing childhood. His father, a naval officer when he is first introduced, started developing a seemingly insatiable thirst for alcohol after what the author stated as being his earliest memory of life. "Going to bed that night was different; something had changed." Months after the aforementioned night, things went from bad to worse as Joseph, his four siblings, and his mother, became victim to a man whose unpredictable moods occasionally resulted in physical violence.
He survives life with an abusive father as well as with an abusive stepfather; however, he doesn't come out of his childhood entirely unscathed. Beginning with the abuse of his own father, who died suddenly due to a work-related injury, he became increasingly withdrawn and utterly incapable of expressing his emotions. After joining the military though, he began to learn how to express himself better, albeit not in a good way. He began drinking. He began throwing punches. Years later, Joseph finds himself in India, trying his best to get an interview with a holy man who, like his deceased father, doesn't even want to acknowledge that he exists.
More than anything else, Joseph's tale is one of perseverance in the face of extraordinarily bad circumstances. One of the things I liked about this book is that it has a lot of food for thought when it comes to all things relating to depression and alcoholism. Everything the author wrote about these two things is totally believable. I understood most of what I was reading, but found everything else too chaotic to follow. To put it gently, reading this book is like being trapped inside an overly stressed individual's mind in dire need of a good dose of anxiety pills.
Apart from grammatical errors and typos, there are a lot of other things that influenced my overall rating. Some of the stuff I read just seemed a bit too farfetched for me to conceive as actual facts. The organization of this novel is poor as details and characters were introduced in the later parts of the novel that left me staring at the pages utterly dazed and mentally numb. Don't get me started on the fact that thirty percent of this book seems to be devoted entirely to the making of flight plans.
Readers who've fallen in love with Elizabeth Gilbert's 2006 memoir Eat, Pray, Love will find something similar in this book. I dare not say that they will love it. This book just has too many wrongs for me to say that. Areas of improvement include better organization and a good deal of editing. My rating is 1 out of 4.
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Why?
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