Truth or Dare Blog Tour: A Different Kind of Same by Kelley Clink

Title: A Different Kind of Same
Author: Kelley Clink
Format: Ebook
Publisher: She Writes Press
Publish Date: May 5, 2015
Source: BookSparks

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "Two weeks before his college graduation, Kelley Clink’s younger brother Matt hanged himself. Though he’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder as a teenager and had attempted suicide once before, the news came as a shock—and it sent Kelley into a spiral of guilt and grief.

After Matt’s death, a chasm opened between the brother Kelley had known and the brother she’d buried. She kept telling herself she couldn’t understand why he’d done it—but the truth was, she could. Several years before he’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, she’d been diagnosed with depression. Several years before he first attempted suicide by overdose, she had attempted suicide by overdose. She’d blazed the trail he’d followed. If he couldn’t make it, what hope was there for her?

A Different Kind of Same traces Kelley’s journey through grief, her investigation into the role her own depression played in her brother’s death, and, ultimately, her path toward acceptance, forgiveness, resilience, and love."

My Two Cents:

"A Different Kind of Same" is a heart wrenching memoir. When Kelley Clink was a teenager, she was diagnosed with depression. A couple years after that, her younger brother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She attempted suicide. A couple years later, her brother attempted suicide and succeeded. This memoir is about Kelley coping with the idea that she feels she blazed the trail for her brother. It also covers how her brother's suicide sent her into a tailspin. This book deals with a grave topic and some parts are hard to read but I think books that cover mental illness in such a clear, unflinching manner are so important.

Kelley holds nothing back when it comes to discussing both her own mental health and that of her brother. She talks about her diagnosis and everything that she went through when she was first getting diagnosed. She also covered how it affected her family. In that same vein, she covers how her brothers diagnoses affects her family.  I can't imagine how it would be to suffers something like the suicide of a sibling. Her family had no known history of depression.

This book was a very fast read for me because I got pulled so deeply into the story of Clink's family. I really appreciated how open the author was with such a difficult subject. Kelley's brother's suicide affects her in a huge way. Not only has she lost her brother but she worries about how her own mental health might be affected since it's quite fragile. I think this is a good book for anyone who has dealt with the suicide of a close friend or family member or is interested in a story of resilience!