A fascinating post-pandemic oddity, “How to Be Broken” is a mixture of trauma psychology briefer (from a psychologist who works in military and police field training) and nakedly honest pandemic memoir. The author never dwells on the fact that she is a thriller writer with half a dozen books on shelves, but from the outset, the reader knows that the storyline and the pacing are in capable hands. Smoothly written and earthed by excellent tales from the annals of trauma, How to Be Broken systematically works through the nature of “being broken,” with specific reference to the terrors of a global pandemic, before offering hope for emergence from the damage. My Covid-19 experience was benign, despite being ensnared in one of the world’s most draconian lockdowns, but even I experienced swathes of disorientation and anxiety, and this book enabled me to discern more clearly what I had been through and how I might even profit, emotionally and psychologically, from the experience. Recommended.
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