When I first heard of ‘I Escape Through You’ by Mike Arnold it sounded like a story of the right person at the wrong time. However this book is more than that. Taking a more intimate look at mental health, and how people leap into relationships in order to try to fix themselves as opposed to working to fix themselves before entering a happy and healthy relationship. Told in just over 100 pages, the author manages to draw us into the intimate lives of Megan and Lucas in relatively few words. This a very well-written book, with an eloquent and fluid writing style that flows from reflections to setting the scene to Lucas’ inner thoughts. It’s interesting to hear this style of story from a male perspective, and I was interested in what he had to say from the very first page. Looking at modern challenges for relationships, from meeting online to long-distance and family pressures to more challenging issues of mental health breakdowns and self harm. This book is a brilliant story about people, how they connect, how they love and how that love and connection changes over time. I wanted to read this in one sitting and I would highly recommend this title.
I Escape Through You follows Lucas as he retells his relationship with Megan, a relationship founded while both lived life in dark places. Struggling with their internal demons, they crave for the relationship to work and to one day climb out the ruts they find themselves in to live out their happily ever after. Through the pains of a long-distance relationship, mental health breakdowns, mistakes, love, social and family pressure, self-harm, and more, can they make it work and find freedom? I Escape Through You is a story about mental health and self-discovery in the modern age, how so many of us seek salvation from ourselves through love, all without learning to love and heal ourselves first. This is Lucas's tale of how he learns this lesson told in a chillingly intimate fashion. Journey with Lucas as he explores himself, his unknowing depression, and his constant striving to fix others as a way of fixing himself through each and every time he and Megan meet. It's clear love always prevails, just not always in the clearest way.