Review: My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward

I’ve been devouring memoirs lately, and I’m really glad that My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward was one of them.

It’s pretty easy to figure out what this one’s about from the title, but on the inside, this is not a straightforward and ordinary book. Yes, the author’s wife goes to the psych ward, but the entire story of how she gets there and their life before, during and after is unique and ridiculously compelling. I had a hard time putting this down!

My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward is a really unique glimpse into family life with mental illness. Mike Lukach and his wife, Giulia, have a seemingly fairy tale life. They meet, they fall in love, they love intensely. Then, suddenly, Giulia experiences an onset of mental illness, despite not really having symptoms before. It’s all very difficult to bear, and the strain it puts on their relationship and their lives is huge. Like I said before, I couldn’t put this one down – I just had to keep reading to find out more about their story.

Lukach provides such an intimate look at living with mental illness. It was an eye-opening read, and I’m so glad I picked it up. If you enjoy memoirs or just want to read a real-life story of living with mental illness, I recommend this one.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours and HarperCollins for the copy of this book in exchange for a fair review!

Book Summary

A heart-wrenching, yet hopeful, memoir of a young marriage that is redefined by mental illness and affirms the power of love.

Mark and Giulia’s life together began as a storybook romance. They fell in love at eighteen, married at twenty-four, and were living their dream life in San Francisco. When Giulia was twenty-seven, she suffered a terrifying and unexpected psychotic break that landed her in the psych ward for nearly a month. One day she was vibrant and well-adjusted; the next she was delusional and suicidal, convinced that her loved ones were not safe.

Eventually, Giulia fully recovered, and the couple had a son. But, soon after Jonas was born, Giulia had another breakdown, and then a third a few years after that. Pushed to the edge of the abyss, everything the couple had once taken for granted was upended.

A story of the fragility of the mind, and the tenacity of the human spirit, My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward is, above all, a love story that raises profound questions: How do we care for the people we love? What and who do we live for? Breathtaking in its candor, radiant with compassion, and written with dazzling lyricism, Lukach’s is an intensely personal odyssey through the harrowing years of his wife’s mental illness, anchored by an abiding devotion to family that will affirm readers’ faith in the power of love.