For now, If you care about appearances, think insight is a big joke, and still feel like the world revolves around you, then you might enjoy this memoir. When she is in true recovery, perhaps she will write a different book, one I will read and review with pleasure.

That tells me she has not learned lasting lessons. Even at the very end of the book, the author is 'caught' doctor shopping.

This has to be one of the most histrionic, narcissistic, and silly books that I have ever read. I tried to empathize with her situation and understand where she was coming from but, in the immortal words of a song from Chorus Line, 'I felt nothing'. Oh, I think I left out that she has an eating disorder. She is shallow, lacks insight, and uses her privilege at every turn. She's also a drunk who has no insight about how her life affects others. She'll take benzo's, opiates, snort cocaine, and loves hallucinogens. What is euphoric recall you may ask? It is when an addict is supposedly in recovery but likes to remember all the great times they had when they were high.Ĭat likes uppers best but she's a non-discriminatory addict. It does a disservice to recovery and embodies euphoric recall throughout. It should never have made it to a publisher. The kicker is that her dad is a psychiatrist who prescribes her uppers and downers and her mother is a psychotherapist. Can you guess that the author comes from a dysfunctional family that looks great from the outside but is rotten to the core on the inside? And of course she comes from money. If you would like to read the shallow story of a self-described 'privileged white girl' who is an addict, this might be the perfect book for you. Profoundly divisive and controversial, How to Murder Your Life is a unforgettable, charged account of a young female addict, so close to throwing her entire life away. Writing in a voice that is utterly magnetic – prompting comparisons to Brett Easton Ellis and Charles Bukowski – she captures something essential both about her generation and our times. With a complete lack of self-pity and an honesty that is almost painful, Cat describes the crazed euphoria, terrifying comedowns and the horrendous guilt she feels lying to those who try to help her. By 26 she was a talented ‘doctor shopper’ who manipulated Upper East Side psychiatrists into giving her never-ending prescriptions her life had become a twisted merry-go-round of parties and pills at night, and trying to hold down a high profile job at Condé Naste during the day. This led to a dependence on Xanax and other prescription drugs at boarding school, and she experimented with cocaine, ecstasy… whatever came her way. After a privileged yet emotionally-starved childhood in Washington, she became hooked on ADHD medication provided by her psychiatrist father. At the age of 15, Cat Marnell unknowingly set out to murder her life.

How to murder your life by cat marnell