May marks Mental Health Awareness Month. My dad is a psychiatrist, so I grew up in a household where talking about mental health was normalized and even encouraged (thankfully). And yet when I struggled with anxiety and depression later in my 20s, I still had trouble confronting what was going on. For me, reading books (fiction and nonfiction!) has been and still is an important coping mechanism for confronting issues that I face, understanding situations others are going through, and sometimes escaping the turmoil of my own mind.
Recognition of how important it is to take care of yourself mentally as well as physically has grown in recent years; however, mental health is still an issue that some people don’t feel comfortable discussing. With some help from Bookstagram, we’ve put together a list of people who never shy away from talking about tough topics, and who encourage you to take care of yourself and look out for others. We asked them what books they recommend for learning more about mental health, as well as what stories they turn to when they’re struggling.
Jenna, Stop Reading recommends Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman, Turtles All the Way Down by John Green, and It’s Kind of A Funny Story by Ned Vizzini
Mama’s Reading Corner recommends Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Books of Every Size recommends The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown, Mindset by Carol Dweck, Eating in the Light of the Moon by Anita Johnson, Beyond Beautiful by Anuschka Rees, and Health At Every Size by Linda Bacon
Shelf Made Woman recommends The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wung and Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig
LPM Reads recommends Furiously Happy: A Funny Book about Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson, Finding Quiet: My Story of Overcoming Anxiety and the Practices that Brought Peace by J.P. Moreland, A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis, Rising Strong by Brené Brown, Boundaries by Henry Cloud and John Townsend, Uninvited by Lysa TerKeurst, The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery, Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton, The Keeper of the Bees by Gene Stratton Porter, the poetry of T.S. Eliot and Mary Oliver, and anything by Sarah J. Maas
Shelf Help recommends Just Peachy by Holly Chisholm, Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come by Jessica Pan, Supper Club by Lara Williams, and Severance by Ling Ma
Marvelous Geek recommends Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig and An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison
Worlds Within Pages recommends Rabbits For Food by Binnie Kirshenbaum, Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Literary Heroine recommends Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert
Read With Kat recommends Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb, Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig, Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh and Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser
The Roaming Reader (Insta: @theroamingreader) recommends The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Normal People by Sally Rooney and The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer
The Book She Elf recommends Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig
Sweating Till I Make It Too recommends Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig, Welcome To My World by Curtis Bunn, Shook One: Anxiety Playing Tricks On Me by Charlamagne Tha God, The Mother of Black Hollywood by Jennifer Lewis, Everything Is An Emergency by Jason Adam Katzenstein
Megh’s Bookshelf recommends Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot, I Never Said I Loved You by Rhik Samadder, Furiously Happy: A Funny Book about Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson, Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh, and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Our Lady of Sorrows Reads recommends The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, and The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson
For more resources, please visit the National Institute on Mental Health: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/find-help/index.shtml
Ellen Whitfield is senior publicist at Books Forward, an author publicity and book marketing firm committed to promoting voices from a diverse variety of communities. From book reviews and author events, to social media and digital marketing, we help authors find success and connect with readers.
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