My Alcoholic Escape from Reality
After a couple of delays, the latest memoir from the author of My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness has finally been released. In every way, this feels like an improvement over My Solo Exchange Diary as a reading experience. I phrase it that way, rather than calling it a better book, because the fragmented, violently chaotic, and circular structure of those two volumes was probably an accurate reflection of her mental state at the time, so it was appropriate.
This latest volume is more focused and structured, detailing her diagnosis with acute pancreatitis and the impact that had on her life. We gain a lot of insight into both the condition and her time in hospital, certainly enough to make the reader want to do everything they can to reduce their own chances of developing pancreatitis. The artwork is also a significant improvement over the last couple of volumes. While Nagata's style has always been simple and sketchy, by the end of My Solo Exchange Diary volume 2 it had disintegrated into childish scribble, though that was no doubt a reflection of the state she was in, having been drawn while she was either in rehab for alcoholism or shortly after.
Elsewhere, Nagata has long been vocal about how much she regretted berating her parents in previous volumes, and she has eliminated that aspect almost entirely this time. The tone retains her constant state of fear and anxiety, but there's less of the vitriol. Interestingly, while the details of her time in hospital make this the most horrifying volume, it's also the funniest due to the way she anthropomorphises her symptoms. I kind of want a plushie of Nagata's pancreas now...
9/10
as the anime didn't get a true uncensored version as it aired like Interspecies and Redo, just a less censored version.
