
My Body Is a Book of Rules
As Elissa Washuta makes the transition from college kid to independent adult, she finds herself overwhelmed by the calamities piling up in her brain. When her mood-stabilizing medications aren’t threatening her life, they’re shoving her from depression to mania and back in the space of an hour. Her crisis of American Indian identity bleeds into other areas of self-doubt; mental illness, sexual trauma, ethnic identity, and independence become intertwined. Sifting through the scraps of her past in seventeen formally inventive chapters, Washuta aligns the strictures of her Catholic school education with Cosmopolitan’s mandates for womanhood, views memories through the distorting lens of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and contrasts her bipolar highs and lows with those of Britney Spears and Kurt Cobain. Built on the bones of fundamental identity questions as contorted by a distressed brain, My Body Is a Book of Rules pulls no punches in its self-deprecating and ferocious look at human fallibility.
Reviews

Gracyn Wistoski@smileygracyn
I read this book for my crisis counseling class in graduate school. I This book has undoubtfully been the most difficult book for me to read in my entire life just because of the content and how I relate to it. Elissa Washuta describes her experiences with bipolar I disorder, sexual assault, identity crisis, an eating disorder, and adjusting to independent life as an adult in a raw and authentic way that allowed me to feel like I was in her mind, experiencing her crisis with her.

Ana Hein@anahein99

Haley Quinton@haleylquinton

Ruby Huber@rubyread