Clare Bowditch – Your Own Kind of Girl (Literature Review)

[Trigger Warning: The following review discusses mental illness. If you or someone you know is struggling and needs help, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.]

“This is the story I promised myself, aged twenty-one, that I would one day be brave enough – and well enough – to write.”

Clare Bowditch: award-winning Australian singer/songwriter, actor and media personality and entrepreneur. With a career as successful as hers, one may look at Bowditch’s life and think she had it made. But in her new memoir Your Own Kind of Girl, she proves that theory wrong.

When most people think of the memoirs of musicians, artists and other creative types, they often think of the journey that led them to where they are today in their creative careers. You know the kind: young girl was always good at music, always on the stage with something special that made her different to others her age. Essentially, they were born to be a star and the high-selling records, busy tour schedules and adoring fans is basically just the product of them fulfilling their musical destiny, with a heavy dose of luck thrown in for good measure.

Your Own Kind of Girl is anything but that kind of memoir. While Bowditch does talk briefly about her career and her success to date, it’s more of a side note to her actual story itself. Yes, she does detail how she came to achieve success in the creative industries. But at its heart, Your Own Kind of Girl is a memoir detailing Bowditch’s lifelong battle with mental illness and how she works every day to overcome her demons and eventually tell her negative thoughts to “F*** off, Frank”.

Bowditch’s struggle with mental illness began at an early age. Before she even reached kindergarten age, she dealt with the loss of a family member and by the time she was in primary school, she was struggling with negative thinking surrounding dieting and how she looked in comparison to other girls in her class. While her parents were more than supportive in helping Bowditch battle her demons, it’s an internal fight that she continues to have to this day to some degree, either when it comes to her music, her public persona or even something as basic as how she looks or what she eats in a day.

There’s no doubt that Bowditch can write. With such a huge back catalogue of songs and thousands of fans across the nation, obviously her ability to express herself so poignantly is one of the things that allows people to connect with her music, and by extension her as a person, so much. And it’s this ability to be so forthright and open in her experiences that makes this book so good.

Without a doubt, it’s one of the best mental health books I’ve read in a long time, yet it’s not even your typical mental health/self-help book. It’s readable, relatable and so brutal in its honesty. And that’s fine. Because no one’s perfect, and mental illness in particular is messy. Life is messy.

In a time when mental illness and the stigma surrounding mental illness is becoming more prevalent in society, Your Own Kind of Girl is the book we need, not only for young girls growing up, but everyone who has ever had thoughts that their not enough. It’s a reminder that regardless of age, looks, background or career struggles at times with ill mental health. And that’s OK.

Your Own Kind of Girl is published by Allen & Unwin. Visit their website for more information about this book, and others they publish.