I Don’t Need Therapy (Toni Lodge, A&U)

Podcaster Toni Lodge has garnered a following for her candid, confessional and always comical videos in conversation with co-host Ryan Jon. Yet, in her memoir, I Don’t Need Therapy (and other lies I’ve told myself), Lodge goes deeper. Along the way, she hovers a torch over the experiences that have shaped her: working in the deli at Coles, getting catfished by a person pretending to be Robert Pattinson in the early stages of Twilight mania, and receiving an acceptance letter to the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts—to name a few. The chapters about the author’s mother, Elizabeth, glow brightest as Lodge recounts their trip to Paris and Elizabeth’s enthusiastic and methodological approach to celebrating birthdays. When Lodge inevitably confronts her mother’s untimely death due to a brain tumour, tears are sure to follow. Toni and Elizabeth’s mother-daughter relationship is what transforms this light-hearted memoir into a poignant tale. This a story about the importance of interrogating the lies we tell to protect ourselves, embracing them, and achieving self-actualisation and healing.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Jasmine Pirovic is a culture writer living and working on Gadigal land. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Reviews