Enough

A Memoir of Mistakes, Mania, and Motherhood

Non-Fiction - Memoir
280 Pages
Reviewed on 08/22/2022
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Author Biography

Amelia Zachry was born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. After graduating from Curtin University with a degree in marketing, she worked in public relations and marketing until she met her American husband, Daniel, when he was traveling through Malaysia. Since then, they have lived together in Japan, Canada (where Amelia obtained a second degree in human ecology from the University of Western Ontario), and Kentucky, and had two daughters together. Now a full-time writer, Amelia is also an advocate for sexual assault survivors and those who suffer from mental illness. She was recently published on HuffPost and Moms Don’t Have Time to Write, and blogs weekly at https://ameliazachry.com, where you can find a list of her recent appearances and more information about her and her work. Amelia lives in Lexington, Kentucky.

    Book Review

Reviewed by Grant Leishman for Readers' Favorite

Enough: A Memoir of Mistakes, Mania, and Motherhood by Amelia Zachary is a deeply personal, profoundly moving, and ultimately joyful journey through one woman’s battle with mental illness and life in general. Amelia was an overachieving, young Muslim girl, growing up in Kuala Lumpur and determined to prove to her parents and family that she could make something of herself in the big, wide world. Whilst attending university in Kuala Lumpur, Amelia is subjected to date rape and, shunned by her peers, she quickly develops a deep sense of loathing and disgust for her choices. Unable to tell her parents of what had befallen her, she struggles alone through a seemingly endless void of alcohol and sexual promiscuity. When a young American, Daniel, finds her and loves her, she is endlessly torn between the happiness and joy of his care, love, and devotion and the certain belief that she is unworthy of any of it. We follow Amy and Daniel on their journey of self-discovery from Kuala Lumpur to Japan to Canada and finally to Kentucky in the U.S.A. where Amy experiences the joys and crushing depressions of motherhood. Determined to somehow find a way out of this never-ending roller-coaster, Amelia seeks help wherever she can find it.

Enough is at times a brutally honest account of the life and mind of author Amelia Zachary. That she has managed to come through the dark times and can now see that mystical “light at the end of the tunnel” is a testament to her strength as a woman and the unwavering support and understanding of her husband Daniel. To those of us fortunate enough never to have experienced mental illness, it can be frustrating to read of the decisions Amelia made when we can see the destructive nature of those choices. What makes it even more real and saddening is that Amelia could also see that the directions she was heading in were wrong but with her bipolar disease she couldn't stop herself. This story opened my eyes to the insidiousness of mental illness and how it lurks, often in abeyance for a long period, before jumping out to confront the sufferer yet again and lead them down yet another perilous path. What particularly impressed me was that despite the sometimes dark and hedonistic aspects of Amelia’s journey the story was incredibly easy to read and empathize with. There will be times when the reader feels like shouting at her, as doubtless Daniel felt like doing frequently, to tell her she was on the wrong path but for me, this is just indicative of the evocative skill as a writer that Amelia brings to this work. Despite the difficulty of the subject, this is an uplifting book and one that is well worth reading. I can highly recommend it.

Pikasho Deka

Growing up in the multicultural hub of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, as a biracial child of an Indian father and Malay mother, author Amelia Zachry got quite the culture shock when she moved to the town of Alor Star as a fourteen-year-old. Living with her grandmother for four years during her late teens, Amelia had somewhat of a distant relationship with her parents. But her true troubles begin when on a fateful night, she was sexually assaulted by a fellow university student from Kuala Lumpur as a nineteen-year-old. After a period of casual flings and chronic drinking, Amelia meets Daniel, her future husband with whom she moved across three countries -- Japan, Canada, and eventually America. But she continued to struggle due to the demons of her past, further exacerbated by her diagnosis of PTSD and bipolar II disorder. Enough is her story.

Victims of sexual assault often take years and sometimes even decades to get over their trauma. Amelia Zachry's story is one that many women from all over the world can, unfortunately, relate to. Enough is about the resilient spirit of humans who overcome their past demons through courage, heart, and perseverance. Although heartbreaking, Amelia's story is also quite an inspiration. Her traumatic experience almost led her into a pit of despair, but with the help of her husband and her loved ones, she finally managed to fight back and rise above her demons. A deeply personal and intimate tale of a woman's struggles and her way back to recovery, Enough is an inspiring read you shouldn't miss out on.