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A gutsy, riveting memoir that intimately explores suicide, its legacy in families, and the often cyclical, crooked path of recovery. Why do so many people choose death--and take their lives by their own hands? How could anyone ever begin to understand what it feels like to want to die? After a decade of therapy and a stint in a psychiatric ward to treat suicidal depression, Arianna Rebolini was "better." She''d published her first book, enjoyed an influential, rewarding publishing job, and celebrated the birth of her first child. Yet the pull of suicide was still there. One night, during bath time, as her young son Theo lined the tub with toy cars, she began calculating how many pills she''d have to down to effectively end her life. In Better, Arianna interweaves the story of her monthlong period of crisis with decades of personal and family history, from her first cry-for-help in the fourth grade with a plastic knife to her fears of passing down the dark seed of suicide to her own son and her brother''s life-threatening affliction. To understand this dark desire, Arianna pored over the journals, memoirs, and writings of famous suicides, and eventually developed theories on what makes a person suicidal. Her curiosity was driven by the morbid, impossible need to understand what happens in the fatal moment between wanting to kill oneself and doing it--or, unthinkably, the moment between regretting the action and realizing it can''t be undone. Then her own brother became institutionalized, and Arianna realized that all of the patterns and trenchant insights could not crack the shell of his annihilating depression. A harrowing intellectual and emotional odyssey marked by remarkable clarity and compassion, Better is a tour through the seductive darkness of death and a life-affirming memoir. Arianna touches on suicide''s public fallout and its intensely private origins as she searches for answers to the profound question: how do we get better for good? ...
About the author
Arianna Rebolini is a writer from New York. She is the co-author, with Katie Heaney, of the novel Public Relations. She lives in Queens with her husband, son, and two cats.
Summary
A VULTURE BEST BOOK OF 2025 (SO FAR)
"[Better] is both an act of defiant self-expression—an insistence on vulnerability over shame—and an academic exploration that asks seriously: 'What is making us want to die?'" —Chicago Review of Books
A gutsy, riveting memoir that intimately explores suicide, its legacy in families, and the cyclical, crooked path of recovery.
Why do so many people want to die—and how do we begin to understand what makes a person choose suicide?
After a decade of therapy and a stint in a psychiatric ward to treat suicidal depression, Arianna Rebolini was “better.” She’d published her first book, enjoyed an influential, rewarding publishing job, and celebrated both a marriage and the birth of her first child. But none of it was enough to keep the desire to die at bay. One night, grappling with overwhelming debt and a pro-longed depression, she composed goodbye letters to her husband and son while they slept just feet away.
In Better, Arianna interweaves the story of this period of crisis with decades of personal and family history, from her first cry for help in the fourth grade with a plastic knife, to her fears of passing down the dark seed of suicide to her own son, to her brother’s own life-threatening affliction. To make sense of this dark desire, Arianna pored over the journals, memoirs, and other writings of famous suicides, and eventually developed theories on what makes a person suicidal.
Her curiosity was driven by the morbid, impossible need to understand what happens in the fatal moment between wanting to kill oneself and doing it—or, unthinkably, the moment between regretting the action and realizing it can’t be undone. When her brother became institutionalized, Arianna realized that all of the pattern recognition and trenchant insights could not crack the shell of his annihilating depression—and that the only way to help a person live is to address the societal factors that make them want to die.
A harrowing intellectual and emotional odyssey marked by remarkable clarity and compassion, Better is at once a tour through the seductive darkness of death and a life-affirming memoir. Arianna touches on suicide’s public fallout and its intensely private origins as she searches for answers to the profound question: How do we get better for good?
