The Reverend Reads … Cheer Up Love by Susan Calman
I really enjoy a good book written by a comedian. My kindle library holds dozens of autobiographies, novels and also books on comedy. Even my IRL library has plenty of these books. I will put a list of the books I’ve read on a separate blog post but for now, you can see the list here. This is a review of the book Cheer Up Love by Susan Calman
Summary
Cheer Up Love is the first book by the comedian Susan Calman. If you are after an autobiographical account of Susan’s rise into comedy then you will find this book sadly lacking. It is the reason I bought this book as I enjoy reading these stories. Any disappointment I felt soon passed as within the first chapter you find out that this is a book about Susan’s relationship with depression and the journeys that she has been on.
The chapters of the book follow a loose chronological order but this doesn’t stop the occasional jump around as we learn a little more about Susan’s childhood or student days. I am aware that she was a Lawyer and left that to become a stand-up comedian however I wasn’t aware of much else about her. It was great finding out about her finally deciding her ‘style’ and also her immense love of cats! How can you not love anyone with a love of our feline over-lords!
The book tells me more about Susan but I also learned a new fact about otters (I wont ruin it for you – but safe to say I wont look at them in quite the same way again). For a book about depression you don’t come away feeling dread, woe or even sadness for Susan. Only in a few sections do you feel bad for the Susan of days gone by but the overall theme, that is often repeated, is that it does get better and its always worth keeping on.
I certainly wouldn’t call the book a ‘self help’ book, or even a ‘help’ book. It is one person’s account of their experience with depression with how it affected them and what they attempted to lose their ‘black dog’ (or ‘Crab of Hate’!). It is, however, worth reading as you find out how Susan makes it through the other side. Not that she doesn’t get depressed, but she recognises some of her triggers and knows how to counter them.
Overall I am pleasantly surprised by this book. I originally expected it to be Journey into Stand-Up by Susan Calman but when I found out that it wasn’t, I read an interesting story about one woman’s experience with depression. No holds are barred but it is neither morbid or sordid in its telling. It would be a great book for a comedy fan, someone interested depression and even a good book for someone who has a depression – it shows there is an exit point but also support networks exists and there is no shame in using them.
How?
I bought this on my Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. It is a great piece of kit and a massive improvement in screen resolution and technology against the old Kindle (with buttons) it replaced. The Kindle Paperwhite has its own back-light and this makes reading in the dark a possibility – great for late night reading and not waking anyone else up.
Buy it
You can buy Cheer Up Love from any good bookshop. If you want it for your Amazon Kindle then you will need to buy it from Amazon.
Cost
I bought this book for 99p from Amazon however it is currently selling for £1.99 (be aware that Amazon’s pricing is dynamic so can rise or fall with no notice). The fact I got it for 99p is important as Amazon regularly has a promotion where if you buy a book from the Kindle Store you would get £1 credit to any video available from Amazon Video. So not only do I get to read an amazing book, I was able to rent a movie to stream for £1 less than its usual price. A real bargain for everyone involved.