Too Good Not to Share*

Consider the voices we all carry in our heads — the ones that say we’re not good enough or strong enough, or likable enough. In Denis, we see the effect of those voices magnified as his fairly normal-looking, if oddly regimented, life goes on after surviving trauma that happened years before.

Dan Mooney’s first novel, Me, Myself and Them, addresses mental illness in a way that’s engaging enough to carry the reader willingly into the relationships between the protagonist, Denis, and the monsters in his head.

Denis lives alone. All alone with four of his friends. At least, he thinks they’re his friends. Recovering from a terrible tragedy, Denis finds the world intruding on him and his housemates. The unsolicited intrusion begins to unravel what’s left of his life, setting him against his friends, setting his friends against each other. There’s hope he can come out the other side, but only if he’s strong enough.

goodreads.com

It may take a bit to get into. You’ve got to agree to let yourself go along for the ride in this unreliable narrator’s head; but Brown presents his protagonist with compassion and humor, illustrating the maxim to be kind because everyone is fighting a battle we know nothing about.

Though the voices in my head are not nearly as monstrous as the voices Denis hears, this book prompts me to consider what role those voices play for me, and whether or not they’re as useful as they may once have been. A question most everyone could benefit from asking themselves.

This book has 4.5 stars on both Goodreads and Amazon. It’s available for free download with a trial of Audible. I read the audio version.

*Too Good Not to Share posts are just because I love to share things that have made a difference in my life, with the hope they may make a difference in someone else’s. I am not compensated in any way, nor do I guarantee that others will have the same positive experience with this product.