Heartbreaking and beautiful. I thought this was very well written and insightful, I couldn't put it down.

I really enjoyed this. It was an engrossing and poignant memoir regarding mental health issues in America

I found this book to be very fascinating as I have been trying to get my hands on many books that dive into explaining mental illness, especially the one's that have a personal touch to them. This book was very interesting in breaking down schizophrenia and a lot of facts corresponded to other books I've read. It gets a little repetitive toward the end but overall I think it was very well written.

I got this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 3.5/5

"In 2018, 19.1 percent of the United States reported a mental illness (this is 47.6 million people, or one in five adults. Of these cases, schizophrenia is purported to affect 1.5 million U.S. citizens."

Kyleigh Leddy bravely commemorates the life of her older sister, Kait, and shares her story to emphasize misconceptions around mental illness in today's society and the lack of research/diagnosis leading to a devastating effect on her family dynamic. Armed with statistics and studies, Leddy does the work to educate the reader on her findings related to mental illness, and more specifically, schizophrenia - information she did not have the luxury of having in one place when her sister and family were struggling. Leddy is also upfront about how Kait's comfortable white upbringing allowed access to resources others may not be so fortunate to obtain.

The What-Ifs in this book highlight the need for additional research and education around schizophrenia to better support those suffering from it. Not only does this book focus on Kait's experience but also how schizophrenia plays a role in society for people of color and/or experiencing homelessness. Sadly, Kyleigh and her mom's regret also fills the pages with What-If ways they could've saved Kait.

My only complaint was this book started to become repetitive and therefore, too long. The narrative itself was compelling; however, while I understand the importance of supporting details, the story started to become buried under the amount of facts and figures that quite frankly went over my head at times.

Overall this book is a beautiful story about a sisterhood that was loved and lost to a misunderstood mental disorder, and how Kait's memory carries on in Kyleigh's endeavors to educate and help those who may too be experiencing or will experience this mental illness.

Important book. Powerful book. So many emotions. A hard one to read because it is so filled with truth...also pain. So many real feelings and emotions.
Written in an easy-to-read, heartfelt style.
It is hard to review a book of this nature on content, however, I feel it is well-written, meaningful, honest, and pure. For me, it is a five-star, very important book to help raise awareness of TBIs, mental health, and medical needs.

"I wrote that I wished 'to use writing and the study of psychology to illuminate misconceptions about mental illness.'" In writing The Perfect Other, Ms Leddy has achieved her goal, and then some. Beautifully crafted and gripping, this memoir of the Leddy family's experience with Kait's descent into the ravages of schizophrenia, and the ripple effects on the family and community as they all lost Kait, provides an intimate and accessible look into a hard subject. Readers will come away from this aching love letter to Ms Leddy's big sister with empathy for the family, but also greater recognition of current research into the disorder and what road(s) may lie ahead for families like the Leddys.

My thanks to Mariner Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to review this title.

The Perfect Other is spellbinding, haunting, and utterly gut-wrenching. The poetic prose and the captivating story made it un-put-down-able. I will be purchasing multiple copies to booktalk to my HS students.

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝐞𝐱𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐦𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐮𝐧𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞.

Families are often at a complete loss in knowing how to help a child with mental illness, I think sometimes (often actually) people ignore the signs or put all their faith in one evaluation that misses the mark. It is a relief, to go along as though nothing is wrong, it’s just a strong or fiery personality. This is often how we fail each other. Fear is a driving force, this is why people try to explain away the obvious until symptoms get out of hand, and every one is dealing with disaster. The most rotten part of all, the person who actually has to deal with the illness in their mind has no guidance, no help. People often look away from the person who is drowning, it’s not always out of cruelty, but the terror of not knowing how to help. The stigma, because of course it still exists with mental illness, look at all the understanding for say, autism (neurodevelopmental disorder); I can tell you despite all the bumper stickers and ribbons, people aren’t as understanding and non-judgmental as society would have you believe. Schizophrenia is a terrifying diagnosis for many, even with the best treatment, best intentions, all the available resources and money, a lot isn’t understood. Many people fear mental illness and are reluctant to see their child labeled. It isn’t easy to weigh and measure your own child, their stability.

Kyleigh Leddy loved her sister, ‘lived in her footsteps’, but lost her to mental illness in a devastating act days before Kyleigh turned seventeen. One must remember while reading this memoir that she was only a teenager, and not an expert in mental health. It’s terrifying living in the claws of disease, and feeling helpless to rescue your loved one. It’s a double edged sword with mental health because the behavior is hard to comprehend, there is often love entangled with resentment. Kait was highly intelligent, mature, a force who was robbed of so much life. As Kyleigh confides, their childhood was swaddled, protected from ‘the hard edges of life’. Even in such families, you can fail to see the fault lines. Sometimes living in the story, you miss so much, until you can go back and reexamine the past.

A child that pushes boundaries may well just be strong willed. Who is to assume it’s a sign of mental illness? Certainly Kyleigh later discovered her mother worried ceaselessly over Kait, but so do many parents, children are different. Not all ‘wild antics’ make mental illness. How can you recognize warnings you’ve never had experience with? We all have our eccentricities and peculiarities, especially highly intelligent people. Just where is the line? When did the moment arrive that foretold the mental disturbances in Kait? What would have prevented her jump off the bridge? How did they all fail her? There are just as many stories of people who were told time and again there is no mental illness or it’s behavioral only. A discipline problem, and sometimes that is the case. Doctors don’t always see the signs either and are hesitant to label.

It is a hard book to read so certainly it must have been very hard to write for Kyleigh. It’s easy to imagine yourself as a savior in other people’s stories, how you would have done this, or prevented that. It’s all untrue. We fail people so often in our own lives, unintentionally. We have our blind spots, every single one of us. Even parents who go through the ‘proper’ channels and push to diagnose and go to treatments. I am not any smarter myself for helping my son through autism challenges, I am no hero, I can look back and see how I could have done this or that better and I had supports in place. Life can turn on a dime. Living with any health struggle (mental, or otherwise) is trial and error, none of us are experts, what works for one won’t work for another and it’s because we are individuals. There are just as many families who fight to get their loved ones to proper doctors, services and are failed (rich or not). You can be all in and still, progress isn’t happening. There are no quick fixes, it is a lifelong journey. There are people who refuse help and those who have tried to take the meds or therapies. Meds themselves cause symptoms, that you can’t ignore and fail to understand why a patient may give up on them. I hear so many people say, ‘well why did they stop taking their meds’? As if they have ever had to cope with the symptoms, or live in another’s headspace or try to rally the energy and money and time to care for someone. I learned a long time ago watching my grandmother and family with my uncle’s schizophrenia that there are no easy answers. It’s so easy to look at the mistakes others made in hindsight. Even armed with expertise, there are mistakes. Was it the head injury that caused everything for Kait? It’s plausible.

One of the wisest lines, “It would be an injustice not to acknowledge how hard it is to care for someone when they are both suffering and inflicting suffering onto you.” Support is necessary for every family member. You can’t help another if you are overwhelmed and hurting yourself. We are not superhumans, nor saints. I think this is an important read, if another’s experience can help you spot the signs, or relate to their emotional experience then it should be welcomed. Both sisters have different experiences with mental illness, it disrupted both of their lives, and sadly it stole Kait’s future. If a family member struggles with any disease or health issue, they all have to cope with it, in varying degrees.

Moving, heartbreaking.

Publication Date: March 15, 2022

Mariner Books

In "The Perfect Other", Kyleigh Leddy chronicles her relationship with her sister Kait and Kait's deterioration into serious mental illness. They were very close as children- Kait wanted a little sister and when Kyleigh arrived, they were inseparable. She charts Kait's decline with a family move to Philadelphia and her entrance into adolescence. This is a common age for mental illnesses, especially psychotic disorders to begin to emerge. The prodromal period of schizophrenia is one not often described nor well understood. Leddy offers up some ideas as to what she believes may have contributed to her sister's illness including multiple brain injuries she sustained, but it appears to me that she was already exhibiting early symptoms prior to those accidents. As Kait's illness worsens, Kyleigh and their mother are left to deal with the wreckage Kait leaves behind, leading to Kait disappearing- a body is never found, though she is presumed dead. This memoir is a fascinating tale told from the side of a family member. At times she goes into more research and theories about her sister's illness, but I found her recollections of their life together the most rewarding portions of the book. This is also a good portrayal of how serious mental health issues affect not only the sufferer of those symptoms.

Thank you to Mariner Books via NetGalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for honest review.

This is something beyond a memoir of family dealing with mental illness. This is a love story between two sisters. This is the story of the love and relationship between these two.

There's nothing more special to me that my relationship with my sisters so this hit hard for me. The way that Kyleigh talks about Kait and their mother is just open and honest, It's so rare to read a book that is so refreshingly ....free.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This was an excellent read! I really enjoyed Leddy's Modern Love essay and this memoir was poignant, moving, and thoughtful.

The Perfect Other by Kyleigh Leddy is an emotional (hauntingly so) memoir about a woman grappling with the mental illness of her sister... and yet it is so much more that that. It's about family and connection and what it means to live and love in this world we all share. Ms. Leddy is a fantastic writer. Her memoir reads almost like a novel, I couldn't put it down. Highly recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
I had a hard time getting through about the first 30% of this book but after that, I feel like it got much more interesting. The close bond between these two sisters is amazing when they were both young children. It's incredibly sad how schizophrenia took away most of that bond piece by piece but it never totally took the bond. The lack of closure is definitely a difficult thing to accept.

I loved this book. It is brave and necessary and heartbreaking. At its center, is the stigma and fears surrounding the way we think of mental illness in this country but also a close look at how mental illness effects families and most especially the sibling relationship. Everyone should read this book.

It would be easy to summarize The Perfect Other as a memoir about experiencing a sister's battle with mental illness, and it would be true. But even with the author's deep clinical knowledge of schizophrenia (driven by her own research and experiences), it's really about love and how fiercely it persists.

Like Kyleigh Leddy and her sister, Kait (whom she describes as "exuberantly bright," "confident and hilarious and at least five years ahead of every trend" - the kind of person people can't help but write books about), my sister and I are five years apart. The Perfect Other pushed me to imagine what my life would have looked like if, through some accident of biology or neurochemistry or maybe even just few bad concussions, my beloved sister changed into someone I didn't recognize, someone dizzying and unpredictable and capable of violence - but deep down, still in there, fighting with voices for space inside her own head. What we and the world would have lost if she'd ultimately felt hopeless and overpowered enough to end her life at 22.

I'm astonished that Leddy - who won the NYT's Modern Love college essay contest in 2019 - is only in her mid-twenties. Her reflections not just on her own experiences but on the human condition are beautifully written and hauntingly accurate. Consider this description of interactions with classmates and teachers after her sister has gone missing, presumed dead:
"This is an essential lesson: The indifference of the world ... People will say, 'I can't imagine what you're going through.' What they won't say is, 'I don't want to.' You know this is a necessary, albeit unfortunate, limitation of human empathy: If society stopped to embrace the full scope of every loss, it would cease to function - no mail, no grocery delivery, no economy. We would be in a constant state of mourning, but to be grieving and watch the world continue on is the cruelest outrage."

Yes, this is heartbreakingly true - but by telling this story in such a raw and honest way, she makes Kait real and forces the reader beyond indifference. The care she catalyzes starts out as specific to Kait, but later expands to many others. You can't read this book and not feel grief and empathy and love.

I devoured this book in a few hours. There were a few occasions where Leddy's writing started to feel repetitive or rambling (more like a journal entry than a memoir), but this isn't surprising considering the subject matter - while we'd like to think of mental illness as tidy, as linear and predictable, it's anything but and I think this is a reflection of that. While she does an impressive job of acknowledging Kait's and her family's relative privilege, I was struck by the use of "gypped" as a slur - I hope that term is replaced before broader publication.

I'm glad the world has Leddy as a writer. I'll be thinking about her, her mother, and Kait for a long time.

Thanks to Mariner Books (formerly HMH Books) for my ARC.