Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive

I've just finished Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive. I was disappointed - probably because expectations had been raised by the reviews, both professional and personal.  I'm not sure what the book is supposed to be. As a memoir it is too preachy; as a self-help book, too shallow.  Self- applause, perhaps?   Then again, who would dare to given the book a bad review, given the knowledge that it might tip the author into depression?   Well I would, I suppose, because that snippet of information irritated me.  

As did the zeal-of-the-newly-converted perspective on yoga and the raking around for quotations from famous-thinkers-and-fellow sufferers (despite the disclaimers).  

So I thought it was just an OK book.

But perhaps this is because I don't suffer from depression - or maybe I should be more circumspect (and circumspection is surely one of the lessons Haig is keen to impart), and state I haven't yet suffered depression.

Would I recommend this book? No I don't think so.  Not like I'd recommend Mark Epstein's Going to Pieces without Falling Apart: A Buddhist Perspective on Wholeness, or Irina Tweedie, The Chasm of Fire: A Woman's Experience of Liberation Through the Teachings of a Sufi Master, or Tim Parks, Teach Us to Sit Still: A Sceptic's Search for Health and Healing, or ...