Book Review: I’ve Never Been (Un)Happier by Shaheen Bhatt

About the book

Lights, Camera . . . Inaction
Unwittingly known as Alia Bhatt’s older sister, screenwriter and fame-child Shaheen Bhatt has been a powerhouse of quiet restraint—until now. In a sweeping act of courage, she now invites you into her head.
Shaheen was diagnosed with depression at eighteen, after five years of already living with it. In this emotionally arresting memoir, she reveals the daily experiences and debilitating big picture of one of the most critically misinterpreted mental illnesses in the twenty-first century. Equal parts conundrum and enlightenment, Shaheen takes us through the personal pendulum of understanding and living with depression in her privileged circumstances. With honesty and a profound self-awareness, Shaheen lays claim to her sadness, finding it a home in the universal fabric of the human condition.
In this multi-dimensional, philosophical tell-all, Shaheen acknowledges, accepts and overcomes the peculiarities of this way of being alive. A topic of massive interest to anyone living with mental health disorders, I’ve Never Been (un)Happier stretches out its hand to gently provide solace and solidarity.

My take on the book

How many of us talk about mental health? I bet, almost every one of us does. But do we know how it feels? Do we know what it is like to live with it? How can we stop something that’s beyond our control?

Surely, only those going through the trauma knows the pain.

As I said, mental health is something which is talked about a lot but we hardly can do anything about it, sometimes we don’t even know if the person with one has it. Because it is hard to understand and even hard to make it out.

When I first heard the book written by Shaheen Bhatt I thought it would be a self-help book that directs us to taking care of our mental health and so on. But on reading the book, I realized it was about the real encounter of the author going through a phase of depression and anxiety. To be honest, I felt the book was raw and straight from the author's heart.

I could understand the pain she must have gone through. We often think the life of a celebrity is all full of fun, parties, good food and outfits. Yes, that is obvious but we never know what’s behind the face of all charm and poses. And, here I understood from her perspective, coming from the family she was from, a successful father who is a renowned filmmaker, a beautiful mother who was once in a successful cinematic actor, a super talented sister with beaming awards in her name and so on. Somewhere she felt that she didn't fit into the family. To put all these in words, it must have been even harder than going through the phase. I found the book rather honest and brave. As she lived with depression, Shaheen Bhatt has beautifully written her journey with depression and narrated her pain as real which does not come because of her lifestyle and is not taken away by her lifestyle. Revealing her daily experience, she shared the bigger picture of one of the most debilitating and critically misinterpreted mental illnesses in the 21st century. The book openly talks about her thought on suicide and where there were days she didn't even want to get out of her bed. 

For people like me, I won’t understand what it must have been to be trapped with something beyond our control, but I understood the pain of trying to break something which is not anyone’s choice. Do pick a copy to understand depression, it’s a struggle and to know more about mental illness through the eye of Shaheen Bhatt from her debut book, I've Never Been (Un)Happier 

  Book Details

Title: I’ve Never Been (Un)Happier

Author: Shaheen Bhatt

Paperback: 200 pages

Price: 200

Publisher: Penguin eBury Press (30 November 2019)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0143449125

ISBN-13: 978-0143449126

My Rating: 4/5