A subtle and penetrating investigation into how mental illness is diagnosed … Aviv is an instinctive storyteller… meticulous, empathic, tirelessly inquisitive.

So attuned to subtlety and complexity… a book-length demonstration of Aviv’s extraordinary ability to hold space for the “uncertainty, mysteries and doubt” of others.

Profoundly intelligent … superbly written portraits … [A] remarkable book.

Captures with subtlety and empathy the honest reality of mental illness… a human chronicle that is intimate and unpredictable… Instead of demonizing disorders of the mind, Aviv seeks to understand their causes.

An incredibly researched, empathetic, and moving book.

Combines the poise of Janet Malcolm and the confessional bravery of Joan Didion … Through half a dozen vivid case studies – one being the story of her own hospitalization at age six – Aviv unravels medical diagnoses and demonstrates how societal narratives around illness take hold. The result is fascinating and empathetic.

Aviv applies her signature conscientiousness and probing intellect to every section of this eye-opening book … A moving, meticulously researched, elegantly constructed work of nonfiction.

In writing against the limits of psychiatric narratives, into the space where language has failed, Aviv paradoxically finds language for the most ineffable registers of human experience.

Writing with uncanny empathy and integrity … Strangers to Ourselves is a work of landmark reporting that is truly heartbreaking and astonishing.

A groundbreaking, paradigm-shifting exploration of the relationship between diagnosis and identity. This is the kind of book that can make your life flash before your eyes, glittering with new insights and a sense of unguessed possibilities.