🩶Book Review🤍

 Asmita Sen’s Euthymia Syndrome is an intricately woven psychological narrative that explores identity, resilience, and the fragility of the human mind through the lens of a protagonist who loses herself only to reinvent her reality in compelling, hallucinatory ways. This novel blends elements of magical realism with introspective psychological fiction, offering readers a journey through mental illness not as a descent, but as a transformation.

The novel engages with the concept of "euthymia" — a term used in psychiatry to denote a stable mood — and juxtaposes it against the protagonist’s destabilized sense of self after being admitted to Hopsten Asylum. As she forgets her real name and creates a new identity, the narrative invites questions of what truly constitutes sanity and whether reinvention is a form of healing or escape.

What stands out is the author’s creative use of classical figures — Hera, Cleopatra, and Bona Dea — who serve not just as hallucinations, but as psychological anchors and mirrors of the protagonist’s fractured identity. Each figure represents a different facet of feminine power, endurance, and intellect. Hera brings regal authority and endurance; Cleopatra, political cunning and passion; Bona Dea, healing and mystique. Through them, the protagonist lives parallel lives that are magical yet deeply intertwined with her personal trauma and growth.

Sen’s writing is lucid, poetic in places, and philosophically rich without being inaccessible. The protagonist is not a passive sufferer of illness but an active philosopher and fighter who confronts her medical condition with startling insight. There’s an undercurrent of feminist strength throughout the book, where the reclamation of agency — even within a psychiatric institution — becomes a revolutionary act.

Euthymia Syndrome draws upon stream-of-consciousness techniques and intertextual references that place it within a lineage of modernist and postmodernist narrative traditions. Yet it remains emotionally grounded, inviting empathy rather than clinical detachment.

In conclusion, Euthymia Syndrome is a courages and inventive novel that destabilizes our conventional notions of mental health while elevating personal suffering into philosophical inquiry. Asmita Sen offers readers not just a story of survival, but a meditation on identity, womanhood, and the beauty of reconstructing meaning in the most unlikely places. Highly recommended for readers who appreciate psychological depth, symbolic richness, and a protagonist whose dares to reinvent herself even in the face of agony.

Must read♥️♥️