2.5/5 stars!

A hilariously honest, heartwarming essay collection about life, love, and discovering you have ADHD at age 35.
 
Despite being a published writer with a family, a gaggle of internet fans, and (most shockingly) a mortgage, Emily Farris could never get her act together. As she saw it, disorganization was one of her countless character flaws—that is, until she was diagnosed with ADHD at age 35. Like many women and girls who go undiagnosed, Farris grew up internalizing criticisms about her impulsivity and lack of follow-through. She held on to that shame as she tried (and often failed) to fit into a world designed for neurotypical brains.
 
I’ll Just Be Five More Minutes is a personal essay collection of laugh-out-loud funny, tear-jerking, and at times cringe-worthy true stories of Farris’s experiences as a neurodivergent woman. With the newfound knowledge of her ADHD, Farris candidly reexamines her complicated relationships (including one with a celebrity stalker), her money problems, the years she spent unknowingly self-medicating, and her hyper-fixations. 
 
I’ll Just Be Five More Minutes is a powerful collection of deeply relatable, wide-ranging stories about a woman’s right to control her own body, about overwhelm and oversharing, about drinking too much and sleeping too little, and about being misunderstood by the people closest to you. At its heart, it’s about not quite fitting in and not understanding why.

I can’t say this was a book I was dying to get my hands on, but it sounded interesting enough and fairly short, so why not? This book is essentially described as an autobiographical collection of stories, focused on the author’s experience living with ADHD. I thought it would be interesting to read about someone else’s experience – like their struggles and maybe how they found balance in everyday life.

At first, I was having a good time learning about her experiences and I even laughed a few times here and there. But as the book progressed, I started losing interest. While reading about some of her experiences was, in fact, interesting and relatable, there were two things I identified that made me not love this.

The first one was the fact that it was all over the place. I get that that’s the point – showing how her brain works through the book – but I think this backfired and decreased the quality of the book. That could also be achieved if the book was a little more organized and structured. There were so many moments where I thought to myself “What is she talking about” or “Why is she talking about this”. It was a mess.

The second thing, and probably the bigger reason why I didn’t love this, was the fact it seems focused on the author’s quirks and personality other than ADHD. There are a lot of stories in the book that weren’t relevant and at some point, it felt like the author was just rambling talking about random events that happened – and worse, I feel like the diagnosis was used constantly as an excuse for her poor behavior towards others. It was a little weird because it felt like I was just reading a random, quirky biography of someone who sees themselves as a main character.

So do I recommend this book? I’m not sure if I would still recommend this to other readers. I’m sure there are better books on the subject, but if you’re just looking to read about someone else’s experience with ADHD… you should try it out. I personally didn’t love it.