Latest Book Reviews:

 

Editorial Review:

"Dually Diagnosed, Dually Blessed is an intimate, wide-ranging look at the intersection of mental illness, addiction, trauma, recovery, and the search for a life that feels worth living. Coventina Waterhawk begins with her own story, recounting childhood suicidal thoughts, substance use, abusive relationships, psychiatric hospitalizations, lost custody, grief, eventual diagnoses, and long-term sobriety with striking openness. What gives the book its shape, though, is the way she turns those experiences toward service. Her story becomes the foundation for a larger conversation about how complicated recovery can be and how much it can depend on treatment, community, self-awareness, persistence, and compassion.

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Waterhawk also makes the subject unusually accessible. Chapters explaining diagnoses and coping methods are written from lived experience, so ideas such as bipolar disorder, trauma responses, medication management, mindfulness, DBT skills, exercise, journaling, spirituality, and support groups are connected to recognizable moments in everyday life. She doesn’t present a single formula for getting well. Instead, the book gathers a toolbox and encourages readers to discover what works for them. That practical spirit runs throughout the book, including the extensive resource section at the end, which reinforces Waterhawk’s desire to give readers somewhere to turn after the final page.

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The personal stories are where the book opens up most fully. Contributors write about postpartum depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, PTSD, alcoholism, drug addiction, grief, professional stigma, military trauma, relationships, medication, creativity, and the difficult work of staying alive and engaged with life. Their voices are distinct, sometimes angry, sometimes funny, sometimes spiritually grounded, and often painfully specific. Together, they show how differently people can arrive at similar feelings of isolation and how many forms support can take. A therapist describes living with mental health challenges while treating others. A veteran explains how recovery, psychiatric care, and a service dog became part of the same support system. Another contributor turns trauma into comic art as a way of processing what happened. The result feels less like a single testimony and more like a room full of people finally saying the things they’ve carried quietly.

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By the time the book reaches its poetry, quotes, and closing resources, its title has earned its meaning. Being “dually blessed” comes to describe the possibility of turning hard-earned self-knowledge into empathy, usefulness, creativity, and connection. Waterhawk’s perspective is deeply personal and openly spiritual, and she makes room beside it for contributors whose healing has come through medicine, therapy, twelve-step recovery, family, art, service, and other forms of support. That generosity of perspective is one of the book’s greatest strengths. Dually Diagnosed, Dually Blessed speaks directly to people who’ve felt defined by a diagnosis or addiction and reminds them that a life can contain illness, recovery, purpose, setbacks, love, and usefulness all at once. This is a book about surviving what once seemed unsurvivable, then turning that survival into a light someone else can find their way by." ~ Literary Titan

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​Editorial Review:

"The emotional candor is considerable: Waterhawk describes suicidal ideation, self-harm, manic episodes, loss of custody, and profound isolation without flinching or performing redemption before it's earned—this honesty will resonate with readers in similar struggles.

 

The book has a clear educational mission and delivers it: diagnoses are explained accessibly, coping methods (DBT, mindfulness, grounding techniques, medication management) are presented with practical specificity, and the author positions herself as a peer guide rather than an expert.

 

The structural framework (personal narrative → diagnosis explanations → coping toolkit → others' stories) is sensible for the intended audience, and the dedication to people lost to suicide and addiction signals the book's genuine purpose" ~Booky Awards