Mental Health Recovery Books: 7 Best Picks for 2026

Somewhere between the self-help shelf and the psychology section sits a quieter, more useful category: mental health recovery books. Not diagnostic manuals, not misery memoirs for their own sake — books written by clinicians, therapists, and people who’ve genuinely walked through the fire and made notes on the way out. If you’ve typed “help for anxiety” into a search bar at 2am, or sat in a GP waiting room wondering what to read next, you already know why this category exists. Mental health recovery books won’t replace a therapist, and none of the seven titles below claim to. What they can do is hand you language for what you’re feeling, a framework for the next difficult Tuesday, and — for a lot of readers — the simple relief of “oh, someone else has felt exactly this.”

This guide isn’t a rewritten Amazon blurb dump. It’s a proper comparison: real books, real specs (page count, format, author credentials), and honest analysis of who each one actually suits. We’ve pulled in genuine, aggregated review sentiment where it’s verifiable, flagged where it isn’t, and skipped the fabricated five-star testimonials some “best of” lists lean on. Public health bodies in England already take reading-for-recovery seriously — the NHS-backed Reading Well Books on Prescription scheme puts curated self-help titles directly into GP surgeries and libraries — so you’re in reasonably good company for taking this seriously too.

By the end, you’ll have a shortlist matched to your actual situation, whether that’s a fresh diagnosis, a long relapse, or supporting someone else through theirs.

What Is Mental Health Recovery Reading, Really?

Mental health recovery books are non-fiction titles — written by psychologists, psychiatrists, or people with direct lived experience — designed to support someone actively working through anxiety, depression, trauma, or another mental health condition, either alongside professional treatment or during the gaps between appointments. They differ from general self-help in that they’re grounded in clinical frameworks like CBT, or in first-hand testimony from recovery itself, rather than vague motivational language.

It’s worth being precise about what this genre isn’t. It isn’t a substitute for a GP, a crisis line, or a qualified therapist, and none of the authors covered here would claim otherwise — several, including Dr Julie Smith and Lori Gottlieb, are practising clinicians who explicitly frame their books as a supplement to treatment. What good therapy books for recovery offer instead is something psychiatry doesn’t always have time for: repetition, worked examples, and the chance to sit with an idea for as long as you need to.

Quick Comparison: The 7 Best Mental Health Recovery Books at a Glance

Looking at the spread, there’s a genuine budget-to-premium range here, and price doesn’t map neatly onto quality — Feeling Good is one of the oldest titles on this list and consistently among the cheapest, yet it’s also the most clinically established. What the table can’t show you is tone: some of these are workbooks you scribble in, some are memoirs you read cover to cover in a weekend, and picking the wrong format for your current energy levels is the single most common reason a recovery book ends up unread on a shelf. We’ll unpack that properly in the sections below.

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Top 7 Mental Health Recovery Books: Expert Analysis

Coverage below spans clinical workbooks, neuroscience-informed guides, and honest memoirs — deliberately, because no single format suits every stage of recovery. Prices are approximate ranges only; always check the current listing before buying, as book pricing shifts with promotions and edition changes.

1. Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy — the original CBT workbook, still clinically respected decades on

Written by psychiatrist David D. Burns, Feeling Good popularised cognitive behavioural therapy for a general readership back in the 1980s, and it’s aged remarkably well precisely because CBT itself hasn’t changed its core mechanics. The book runs to roughly 400+ pages depending on edition, structured around identifying and challenging the specific “cognitive distortions” — all-or-nothing thinking, catastrophising, mind-reading — that keep low mood circling. In practice, that means you’re not just reading about depression; you’re working through printed worksheets that mirror what a CBT therapist would actually ask you to do in session, which is precisely why NHS-aligned self-help schemes lean so heavily on CBT-based materials.

Feeling Good suits methodical readers who want structure over narrative — if you like ticking boxes and seeing your thought patterns laid out in black and white, this is your book; if you want a story to relate to, look further down this list. Reviewers consistently describe the exercises as genuinely applicable rather than theoretical, though several also note the 1980s-era case studies and pop-psychology tone haven’t been fully modernised in older printings, which can occasionally feel dated against newer, more clinically current alternatives.

Pros:

• ✅ Built on decades of clinically validated CBT technique
• ✅ Practical worksheets you can use immediately, not just theory
• ✅ Written by a practising psychiatrist, strong clinical authority

Cons:

• ❌ Dated examples and tone in some printings
• ❌ Dense for readers who want a lighter, story-led read

At around the budget end of this list, Feeling Good‘s low price relative to its clinical pedigree makes it one of the strongest value picks here, particularly for anyone who wants a structured starting point before exploring anything more narrative.

2. The Upward Spiral — best for low-motivation days and small, science-backed wins

Neuroscientist Alex Korb wrote The Upward Spiral around a genuinely useful reframe: depression isn’t one big problem to solve, it’s a downward spiral of small neurological feedback loops, which means recovery can start with equally small upward ones. The book breaks down brain regions and neurotransmitter systems — the prefrontal cortex, serotonin, dopamine — into plain English, then ties each one to a concrete, low-effort action like a short walk, a moment of gratitude, or fixing your sleep schedule by twenty minutes.

What sets this apart from denser neuroscience titles is the deliberate emphasis on tiny actions rather than sweeping life changes, which matters enormously when depression itself saps the motivation needed for big changes. Based on the structure of the book, it’s best suited to readers in a low-energy phase of their psychological recovery — people for whom “read a 400-page workbook” currently feels impossible, but “read two pages and try one thing today” doesn’t. Aggregated reader sentiment tends to praise its brevity and actionability, while some note it works better as a companion to therapy than as a standalone deep-dive for complex or long-standing depression.

Pros:

• ✅ Short, digestible chapters suited to low-energy periods
• ✅ Genuinely small, achievable actions, not vague advice
• ✅ Explains the “why” via neuroscience without overwhelming jargon

Cons:

• ❌ Lighter depth than dedicated clinical workbooks
• ❌ Less suited to severe or treatment-resistant depression alone

Priced similarly to Feeling Good, The Upward Spiral earns its place through sheer accessibility — it’s arguably the easiest of all seven books to actually finish, which counts for a lot when concentration is part of what recovery has taken from you.

3. Reasons to Stay Alive — the memoir that makes depression feel describable

Matt Haig’s Reasons to Stay Alive is less a self-help book than a short, candid account of surviving a severe depressive and anxious breakdown in his mid-twenties, followed by his slow return to functioning. Structurally it’s fragmented — short entries, lists, single-page reflections — which mirrors, deliberately or not, how depression actually disrupts concentration and makes long-form reading feel impossible.

Genuine aggregated Amazon UK review sentiment for this title is unusually consistent: readers repeatedly describe it as an emotionally accurate, quick, and highly readable account of depression that offers real comfort to both people currently struggling and those trying to understand a loved one’s experience. What most buyers overlook going in is how funny parts of it are — Haig’s dry humour keeps the book from tipping into misery-memoir territory, which is a deliberate craft choice rather than an accident, and it’s a large part of why it works as an entry point back into reading for people who haven’t managed a full book in months.

Pros:

• ✅ Short chapters, ideal when concentration is limited
• ✅ Widely and consistently praised for emotional accuracy
• ✅ Accessible to non-readers and lifelong readers alike

Cons:

• ❌ Memoir format, not a structured treatment programme
• ❌ Focused specifically on depression and anxiety, less on other conditions

At the budget end of the range, Reasons to Stay Alive offers strong value simply on cost-per-hour of engagement — it’s short enough to read in a single sitting, yet the ideas tend to stay with readers well beyond that.

4. Lost Connections — best for understanding the “why” behind low mood

Journalist Johann Hari’s Lost Connections takes a different angle entirely: rather than focusing on individual coping techniques, it investigates the social and environmental causes of depression and anxiety — disconnection from meaningful work, community, nature, and a secure future — drawing on interviews with researchers across multiple countries. It reads more like long-form journalism than a clinical guide, which is exactly its appeal for readers who feel like existing advice treats symptoms without addressing causes.

Here’s what the framing won’t tell you outright: this is a context book, not an exercises book. It won’t hand you a worksheet, but for readers whose recovery process has stalled partly because they can’t articulate why they feel disconnected in the first place, it can be genuinely clarifying — several of Hari’s central arguments have also drawn academic pushback for oversimplifying complex psychiatric causation, so it’s worth pairing with a more clinically grounded title rather than reading in isolation. Aggregated reader sentiment tends to split along exactly this line: strong praise for readability and the social-cause framing, alongside a recurring criticism that it downplays biological and pharmacological factors in depression.

Pros:

• ✅ Compelling, journalistic writing style, easy to stay engaged with
• ✅ Widens the lens beyond individual-level coping strategies
• ✅ Strong for readers who want the “why,” not just the “how”

Cons:

• ❌ Contested by some psychiatric researchers on causation claims
• ❌ Offers less in the way of concrete daily exercises

Mid-range in price and mid-range in clinical rigour, Lost Connections is best read as a second or third book in a recovery reading list, once you’ve got some grounding in technique elsewhere.

5. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone — best for readers curious about therapy itself

Written by practising psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb, this book alternates between her own patients’ therapy sessions and her experience of becoming a patient herself after an unexpected personal crisis. It’s structured more like narrative non-fiction than a self-help manual, following several composite/anonymised case studies alongside Gottlieb’s own therapy with a colleague.

The real value here, based on the way the book is built, is demystification: readers get an unusually honest look at what therapy sessions actually involve, including their awkward, unglamorous moments, which can meaningfully lower the barrier to seeking treatment for anyone who’s hesitant. It’s also, notably, one of the few books on this list written by someone actively practising as a clinician while also being in therapy themselves — a dual perspective reviewers consistently flag as the book’s most distinctive strength. Where it’s less useful is as a direct technique guide; you’ll come away with insight and possibly motivation to seek therapy, but not a structured set of exercises to work through solo.

Pros:

• ✅ Genuinely demystifies what therapy sessions are actually like
• ✅ Dual therapist/patient perspective, rare in this genre
• ✅ Engaging, story-driven, easy to keep reading

Cons:

• ❌ Not designed as a self-guided exercise programme
• ❌ Longer read than most other titles on this list

Sitting in the mid-range price band, this is best positioned as a bridge book — ideal for someone weighing up whether to actually book that first therapy appointment.

6. The Body Keeps the Score — the deep-dive choice for trauma-focused recovery

Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score is the most clinically dense and widely cited title on this list, running to well over 400 pages and covering how trauma reshapes the brain and nervous system, alongside a survey of treatment approaches including EMDR, somatic therapies, and neurofeedback. It’s a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller with several million copies sold since publication, which tells you something about how far its ideas have travelled beyond clinical circles.

What the spec sheet won’t tell you is how emotionally intense a read this can be — several chapters walk through detailed case histories of severe trauma, and aggregated reader feedback consistently flags this as a book best approached with some support in place rather than in complete isolation, particularly for readers whose own trauma history overlaps closely with the material. On the clinical side, it’s widely regarded as one of the most authoritative lay-accessible texts on trauma available, and it’s frequently recommended as background reading before or alongside trauma-focused therapy such as EMDR — worth discussing with a GP or NHS talking therapies service if that’s the direction you’re considering.

Pros:

• ✅ Exceptionally authoritative, widely cited in clinical contexts
• ✅ Covers a genuinely broad range of trauma treatment approaches
• ✅ Bestseller status reflects sustained, real-world relevance

Cons:

• ❌ Emotionally intense; not ideal reading in complete isolation
• ❌ Long and dense compared with shorter titles on this list

At the premium end of the range — particularly in hardback — The Body Keeps the Score justifies its price through sheer depth and longevity; this isn’t a book you’ll finish once and shelve, it’s one people return to across years of recovery.

7. Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? — best bite-sized daily toolkit

Clinical psychologist Dr Julie Smith built this book directly from the short-form videos that made her a well-known mental health voice online, restructured into a genuinely comprehensive, bite-sized toolkit covering motivation, self-criticism, grief, and everyday resilience. It’s sold over two million copies globally and spent well over 100 weeks on the Sunday Times bestseller list, making it the top-selling UK non-fiction title of its release year — figures that are independently corroborated across multiple publisher and retailer listings rather than self-reported.

Structurally, this is the most “dip in and out” friendly book here: each section is short enough to read in a spare five minutes, which suits recovery phases where concentration is unreliable but you still want daily engagement with useful tools. Based on the spec comparison with denser titles like Feeling Good or The Body Keeps the Score, what you gain in accessibility you trade slightly in depth — this is a toolkit for maintaining and building resilience day to day rather than a deep clinical treatment programme for a specific diagnosis, and it’s best used that way.

Pros:

• ✅ Extremely accessible, short entries suited to low concentration
• ✅ Written by a practising clinical psychologist
• ✅ Verified bestseller status and broad, sustained readership

Cons:

• ❌ Less depth than dedicated clinical workbooks
• ❌ Hardback edition sits at the premium end of this list’s price range

Pricing varies significantly by format here — the hardback runs toward the premium end of this list, while the paperback typically undercuts it substantially, so it’s worth checking both listings before deciding.

Top 7 Books: Specs, Price Range and Best For

Read across this table and a pattern emerges: page count roughly tracks depth, but not usefulness — The Upward Spiral is one of the shortest books here and consistently one of the most-recommended for people in a genuinely low-energy phase of recovery. If budget is your main constraint, Feeling Good and Reasons to Stay Alive both sit at the cheaper end while still carrying serious clinical or critical credibility, whereas The Body Keeps the Score and the hardback edition of Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? represent the premium picks worth the extra spend if depth and daily practicality respectively are your priority.

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How to Choose Mental Health Recovery Books

Not every recovery book suits every reader, and picking badly is a genuinely common reason people abandon reading altogether during a difficult period. Work through these in order:

1. Identify your primary need first. Are you looking for practical technique (CBT exercises), emotional validation (memoir), or understanding of causes (research-led non-fiction)? Each of the seven books above leans strongly toward one of these.
2. Match the format to your current energy. If concentration is a genuine struggle right now, bite-sized books like Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? or The Upward Spiral will get finished; a 500-page trauma text may sit unread for months.
3. Check who wrote it. Books by practising clinicians (Burns, Smith, Gottlieb, van der Kolk) tend to carry stronger clinical grounding than those by journalists or writers without formal training — that doesn’t make the latter worthless, but it changes what you should expect from them.
4. Consider whether you’re reading alone or alongside treatment. Some titles, particularly The Body Keeps the Score, are commonly recommended as companion reading during therapy rather than standalone treatment.
5. Factor in emotional intensity. If you’re in a fragile period, a dense trauma narrative might not be the right starting point — start lighter and build up.
6. Think about rereadability. Workbook-style titles like Feeling Good are designed to be revisited repeatedly; memoirs are usually read once and kept for reference.
7. Don’t buy on price alone. As the tables above show, the cheapest option here (Feeling Good or Reasons to Stay Alive) is not automatically the “lesser” choice — clinical grounding and price range aren’t strongly correlated in this category.

Common Mistakes When Buying Therapy Books

Even well-intentioned buyers get this wrong in predictable ways. First, buying purely on bestseller status: a book selling millions of copies (like Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?) is popular for good reason, but popularity doesn’t automatically mean it’s the right fit for your specific diagnosis or stage of recovery — a bestseller list measures sales, not personal compatibility.

Second, starting with the heaviest book on the shelf. It’s tempting to reach straight for the most comprehensive, most cited title — often The Body Keeps the Score — assuming more depth equals more help. In practice, starting recovery reading with the densest, most emotionally intensive text can backfire if concentration or emotional resilience is currently low; several of the shorter titles above exist precisely to bridge that gap first.

Third, treating a recovery book as a therapy substitute. None of the authors covered here suggest their book replaces professional treatment, and readers who use a book to actively avoid seeking a GP referral or talking therapy tend to see worse outcomes than those who read alongside treatment. Fourth, ignoring format fit — buying a dense paperback workbook when what you actually need, based on your current energy, is a memoir you can read passively in short bursts. And finally, assuming aggregated star ratings tell the whole story: a 4.5-star average can still mean a book is a poor fit for your specific condition even if it’s broadly well-loved.

Mental Health Recovery Books vs Traditional Recovery Alternatives

The comparison here isn’t really “books versus therapy” — it’s about where books fit alongside everything else. Recovery books are the fastest and cheapest access point of the four, with zero waiting list, which matters given how long NHS talking therapy waiting times can run in some areas. What they can’t replicate is the personalised, responsive structure of a live conversation with a trained professional, or the community element that peer support groups like those signposted through Mind’s mental health resources provide. Most readers get the best results treating recovery books as a genuine complement to one of the other three rows, not a replacement for them.

Getting the Most from Therapy Books: A Practical Reading Guide

Buying the right book is only half the job — how you actually read it during recovery matters just as much. Start by setting a realistic pace: treat structured workbooks like Feeling Good as a course, not a novel, and give yourself permission to spend a week on a single chapter if the exercises need it. For memoirs like Reasons to Stay Alive, the opposite applies — reading in one or two sittings, if you can manage it, tends to preserve the emotional throughline that makes the book work.

A common mistake in the first 30 days is trying to apply every technique from a workbook simultaneously; pick one exercise, practise it for a week, then add the next. Keep a physical notebook alongside dense clinical books like The Body Keeps the Score — jotting down which chapters land emotionally hard lets you pace future reading sessions around your own capacity rather than the book’s chapter order. If you find yourself avoiding the book entirely, that’s usually a format-fit issue rather than a willpower issue — swap to something shorter, like The Upward Spiral or Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?, rather than pushing through. Finally, if a book raises difficult material you weren’t expecting, it’s worth mentioning that specific chapter to a GP or therapist rather than processing it entirely alone — that’s precisely the kind of gap professional support is there to fill.

Real Recovery Scenarios: Matching the Book to Your Situation

The newly diagnosed reader. Someone recently diagnosed with generalised anxiety or mild-to-moderate depression, still on an NHS talking therapies waiting list, wants something structured to start with immediately. Feeling Good fits well here — it mirrors CBT session structure closely enough to feel like a genuine head start once formal therapy begins, and its low price makes it an easy first purchase.

The burnt-out professional. A reader in their thirties or forties, functioning but exhausted, low on both time and motivation, wants something that respects a packed schedule. The Upward Spiral or Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? both suit this mental health journey well — short, actionable entries that fit into a lunch break rather than requiring a dedicated evening.

The trauma survivor already in treatment. Someone actively working with a trauma-informed therapist, wanting to understand the “why” behind their symptoms between sessions. The Body Keeps the Score is the clear fit, ideally read a chapter at a time and discussed with their therapist rather than consumed in one long binge — pacing matters more than speed here.

The supportive partner or parent. Someone who isn’t personally in recovery but wants to understand a loved one’s depression without projecting their own assumptions onto it. Reasons to Stay Alive or Maybe You Should Talk to Someone both work well, offering genuine insight into lived experience without requiring clinical background knowledge.

Problem → Solution: Common Reading Roadblocks in Recovery

Problem: “I can’t concentrate long enough to finish a book.” Solution: switch to bite-sized formats. Both Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? and The Upward Spiral are built around short, standalone entries specifically because their authors anticipated this exact issue in their readership.

Problem: “The material feels too intense right now.” Solution: step down in intensity temporarily. If The Body Keeps the Score feels overwhelming, pause it and pick up Reasons to Stay Alive or The Upward Spiral for a few weeks before returning — recovery process books aren’t a race, and there’s no penalty for reading out of “difficulty order.”

Problem: “I’ve read the book but nothing’s changed.” Solution: this usually means the exercises were read rather than practised. Feeling Good‘s worksheets, for example, only work if you physically complete them; passive reading of an active workbook is a mismatch, not a failure of the method.

Problem: “I don’t know if I need a book or a therapist.” Solution: you likely need both, sequenced sensibly — a recovery book can be a genuinely useful bridge while you’re waiting for an NHS Talking Therapies referral or researching private options, but it shouldn’t become the reason you delay seeking that referral in the first place.

Problem: “I’m supporting someone else and don’t know where to start.” Solution: read a memoir-style title yourself before recommending a workbook to them — Reasons to Stay Alive builds the empathy and vocabulary needed to have a useful conversation, which usually matters more upfront than handing over a CBT manual.

Therapeutic Reading for Different Stages of the Psychological Recovery Process

Early-stage recovery — the first weeks after a diagnosis, crisis, or decision to seek help — tends to favour shorter, gentler formats. This is where Reasons to Stay Alive and Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? earn their place: low barrier to entry, immediate practical or emotional payoff, minimal risk of feeling overwhelmed.

Mid-stage recovery, once some structure or professional support is in place, is where the more technique-heavy titles come into their own. Feeling Good and The Upward Spiral both suit this window well, offering concrete tools to practise now that there’s enough stability to actually apply them consistently.

Later-stage recovery, or maintenance and relapse-prevention, is often where readers turn to deeper, more reflective titles like The Body Keeps the Score or Lost Connections — not because they’re “harder” books, but because understanding root causes and long-term patterns becomes more relevant once acute symptoms have eased. Healing mental health rarely follows a straight line, and it’s entirely normal to move backward and forward across these stages, revisiting an earlier-stage book during a harder week even after progressing past it once.

Long-Term Value and Building a Reading Habit

Cost-per-use is where recovery books quietly outperform almost every other support option on this list. A £10 paperback read once already delivers reasonable value; the same book, reread annually or kept as a reference during difficult periods for years afterward, delivers genuinely exceptional long-term value compared with, say, a single £60 private therapy session.

Workbook-style titles like Feeling Good are particularly strong here because they’re explicitly designed for repeated use — the exercises don’t expire once you’ve completed them the first time, and many readers report returning to specific chapters years later during a relapse or a stressful life event. Reference-style titles like The Body Keeps the Score function similarly, often ending up as a permanent shelf fixture rather than a one-read book, consulted whenever a new symptom or question arises. The practical upshot: when comparing total cost of ownership, it’s worth weighing not just cover price but how likely you genuinely are to open the book again in a year’s time — and on that measure, the workbook and reference-style titles on this list tend to edge out the memoirs, useful as the memoirs are for that crucial first read.

Safety, Regulation and When Self-Help Reading Isn’t Enough

None of the books covered here are regulated medical devices or clinical treatments in their own right, and it’s worth being direct about that. If you’re experiencing thoughts of self-harm or suicide, or symptoms that are severely disrupting daily functioning, a book is not the appropriate first response — contact your GP, call NHS 111, or in an emergency call 999 or go to A&E. The NHS’s self-help therapies guidance is explicit that guided self-help materials, including books, work best as a supplement to professional input rather than a substitute for it, particularly for moderate-to-severe presentations.

That said, for mild-to-moderate anxiety, low mood, or general resilience-building, structured self-help reading has a reasonable evidence base, which is precisely why schemes like Reading Well exist within the NHS system in the first place — GPs genuinely do prescribe specific titles. If you’re supporting a child or young person, it’s worth noting that most titles on this list, including The Body Keeps the Score, are written for an adult readership and contain material that may not be appropriate without careful adult guidance; age-appropriate alternatives exist and are worth researching separately rather than handing over an adult trauma text unmediated.

Features That Actually Matter (And Those That Don’t)

What actually matters: author credentials and clinical grounding, genuine reader-reported usefulness over time, and format fit for your current concentration and energy levels. What matters far less than marketing suggests: cover design, celebrity endorsement blurbs, and raw bestseller ranking in isolation — a book can be extremely popular and still be the wrong fit for your specific situation, as the comparison table above makes clear.

One feature that’s genuinely underrated by buyers: chapter length and structure. A book with short, self-contained sections is dramatically more usable during an actual mental health crisis than a book demanding sustained 40-minute reading sessions, regardless of how good the content is on paper — this is arguably the single most practically important spec on this entire list, and it’s rarely mentioned on the product listing itself.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

There’s no single best book on this list — only the best book for where you are right now. If you want structure, start with Feeling Good. If concentration is genuinely limited today, The Upward Spiral or Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? will get finished when a denser book won’t. If you need to feel less alone before you need technique, Reasons to Stay Alive or Maybe You Should Talk to Someone will likely land harder than any workbook could. And if you’re ready for real depth, particularly around trauma, The Body Keeps the Score remains one of the most respected texts available to a general readership.

What all seven share is a refusal to oversimplify: none of them promise a quick fix, and that honesty is, frankly, part of what makes them trustworthy. Mental health recovery books work best as one part of a wider support system — alongside a GP, possibly a therapist, and the people around you — rather than a solo substitute for any of it. Pick the one that matches your current energy, not the one with the flashiest cover, and give it more than one chapter before deciding it isn’t for you.

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