Overthinking About You Book Review
Book by: Allison Raskin
Reviewed by: Kiana Blake-Chung
Allison Raskin is a NYT bestselling author, a podcaster, youtuber and a screenwriter. I first heard about her most recent book Overthinking About You after I wrote a blog piece on the topic of Navigating Dating while Mentally Ill. I bought the book but I never started reading it in earnest until after I broke up with the partner I was writing about in my aforementioned blog post.
That said, this is a great book to read after a relationship ends! The first chapter is literally on the topic of breakups. I’d started the book while I was still in the relationship, but who wants to read about breakups when you’re not broken up? So I had to go back and reread from a heartbroken perspective.
The book is chock-full of practical advice from not only the lived experience of Allison, but also the various mental health, relationship and sex experts that she interviews in each chapter. The chapters’ topics range from avoiding unhealthy relationships, to talking with your significant other about your mental health, to how to work through hang-ups with sex.
The book is very engaging, and reads not only like a friend venting about her shitty love life, but as a helpful resourceful blog from an engaging and caring standpoint.
While the main focus of the book is on those who experience anxiety, depression and OCD, as someone who does not struggle with OCD, I still found it relevant to my life experience and also found the advice to be potentially helpful. (I say potentially because now I don’t have the opportunity to put it into practice; it would have been helpful to maybe finish reading this book before I made a finite decision, but c’est la vie.)
The tone of the book is extremely hopeful and optimistic about the beauty and possibility of love, which, as a single person, I can’t quite tap into yet. It rubbed off a tad and I have not been as quick to permanently swear off of love- though I can still confidently say I will not be dipping my toes back into the dating pool any time soon.
The biggest, most helpful revelation I gleaned from this book is that going forward, it will be a requirement that whoever I date needs to be in therapy for themselves. It is a lot to emotionally support someone who struggles with their mental health and it can weigh heavily on a person who is not equipped to deal with that additional mental weight themselves. It is vital that both partners in a relationship have a robust support network if even one party struggles with severe mental illness.
Whether you are happily single, coupled, or heartbrokenly single, I highly recommend this book if romantic love is anywhere on your radar.
Allison Raskin is a NY Times bestselling author, director, comedian, YouTuber, podcaster, and mental health advocate. She recently graduated with a Masters in Psychology.