RECKLESS STEPS TOWARD SANITY

A memoir of an author’s traumatic teenage years and its effect on her adulthood.

As a teenager in Denver, debut author Gelt outwardly appeared to have an idyllic life. Her father was a prominent, respected attorney, her mother managed the household and hosted social gatherings, and the family appear to have had few financial concerns. However, the author experienced a series of terrible events over a short period of time, which she recounts in this book in harrowing detail. She describes a teacher who betrayed her trust with an assault, her own suicide attempt, and a violent rape at gunpoint. She also describes the impact that her mother’s deteriorating mental health and father’s coldness had on the family. The book’s power lies in the author’s skill at clearly relating life-changing occurrences; for instance, she describes how her suicide attempt changed her perspective on the world: “I woke each day in a world that I had determined to never wake in again.” Gelt also expertly uses accounts of her interactions with other people to highlight what she felt was missing in her own life. At one point, she tells of how she ran away from home and was briefly being taken in by an acquaintance and his family, which made her realize how unloved and out of place she felt in her own household: “I longed for the safety of the familiar but didn’t desire home.” She later feels a similar bond with her first husband, Jack, and his family; she notes this feeling as the reason why she kept Jack’s last name after they divorced. Gelt also memorably describes how her mother’s mental illness overshadowed her own struggles: “her suffering was a jealous child.” Ultimately, the author compellingly shows how she found the strength to persevere and confront her own mental health challenges.

A powerful and heartrending story of personal recovery.