the dogs. the DOGS.

I picked this up because I like her on the telly and I assumed it would be an anecdote book, the sort that sits by the tills in December. it is not that at all. it's about depression, hers, in detail, and she makes it clear by about page four that she isn't going to be adorable about it for anybody's comfort.

the honesty is the reason to read it. she gets at the actual texture, not the film version — not lying in a dark room looking cinematic, but the admin of it. the unanswered emails. being completely fine at work and then sitting in the car park for forty minutes afterwards. I read that and thought oh. that's what mum has been describing for years and I have been hearing something else entirely.

(I rang her after. we didn't talk about the book. but I rang her.)

the dogs though. THE DOGS. she writes about her dogs the way some people write about faith and I was not remotely prepared for how much of this book's emotional weight is carried by two small animals who have no idea they're doing it. one passage about being got out of bed by something that needs feeding, and how that isn't a metaphor, it is just literally why you got up that day, and I had to stop. Biscuit was asleep across my feet at the time which did not help.

also the title is doing something quite clever and quite annoyed. Cheer Up Love. it's what men say to you in the street, and it's what everybody says to a person who is ill without knowing they're ill, and she never explains the joke, she just sticks it on the front and lets it sit there.

what stops it being a ten: it's baggy. it wanders. some chapters are answering a question nobody asked, and the ordering is odd, so you get something enormous and then something quite slight immediately after and it lets all the air out. and she pre-empts criticism of herself constantly (I know I'm lucky, I'm not saying I had it worse, I know, I know) and after a while I wanted to shake her very gently and say you're allowed, Susan.

but I'd hand it to people. specifically to people who don't get it, because she is very good at explaining the inside of a thing to somebody standing outside it without making them feel stupid for standing outside.

Steph read it after me and we ended up talking about it in the kitchen at 1am, which is not a thing we normally do, so points for that as well.

eight. and I have since watched about nine hours of her on YouTube, which is not a review, but it is a data point.