New Article on Divine - Review of Me and Her.


Divine News

I have a new article on the Divine website, a review of Me and Her, a memoir by Karen Tyrrell. It is about her life with Bipolar Disorder. The review is very different from the personal review I had previously posted on my blog. This is the first paid book review I have done so I was determined to keep references to myself and my opinion out of the review. I think I succeeded.   

I originally submitted an image of the cover of the memoir to Divine in the body of the email with the article.
 

Unfortunately the image did not show up in the email when the Divine editor viewed it. So the story did not go up with the book cover as its image. I am trying to rectify this. 

The editor at Divine told me I needed permission from the publisher to use an image of the cover of the book. If that damned image in the original email had revealed itself to her I would have known about this proviso before the story went up on the site. Anyway, I immediately contacted Karen Tyrrell and I have forwarded her permission to use the image to the Divine editor.

Only at this stage did I think about not mentioning the book was self-published in the review. A year ago, I probably would have, but having seen how good carefully selected self-published books are, I did not even think it required mentioning.

I have read other reviews of Me and Her, all personal ones, and I can’t remember any of those reviewers mentioning the memoir was self-published. Perhaps they didn’t know, but I suspect most didn’t care. They had read the book and made up their own minds about the quality of the writing and editing of the book. I think readers and reviewers who refuse to read or review self-published books should rethink their intransigence.  

Me and Her is an engrossing, well written and edited book. I recommend it to everyone. I reckon most people will encounter mental illness during their lives, be it their own, a family member’s, friend’s or a work mate’s. This memoir will give you an insight on what to expect and how the support of family, friends and workmates seems crucial for the recovery of a person with a mental illness.

Next Article For Divine.

I have now started writing my next article for Divine, about my adventures in the public dental system. Since April last year I have made so many trips to the dentist I have become an expert patient.  

At the start of the first draft of the article I wrote a humorous opening paragraph about the various tortures dentists put their patients through, like how I am always troubled by them fleeing the room just before they irradiate my head for x-rays. But when I finished the draft I found I had written 1200 words, which is slightly more than the ideal 500 words for an article. So the opening paragraph was extracted. Now I just have to give the rest of the article an major floss and clean.   

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