Books

Better: A Memoir About Wanting to Die

“There are readers for whom this may become the most important book they ever read.”
— Chloé Cooper Jones

After a decade of therapy and a stint in a psychiatric ward to treat suicidal depression, Arianna Rebolini was “better.” She’d published her first book, enjoyed an influential, rewarding publishing job, and celebrated both a marriage and the birth of her first child. But none of it was enough to keep the desire to die at bay. One night, grappling with overwhelming debt and a pro-longed depression, she composed goodbye letters to her husband and son while they slept just feet away.

In Better, Arianna interweaves the story of this period of crisis with decades of personal and family history, from her first cry for help in the fourth grade with a plastic knife, to her fears of passing down the dark seed of suicide to her own son, to her brother’s own life-threatening affliction. To make sense of this dark desire, Arianna pored over the journals, memoirs, and other writings of famous suicides, and eventually developed theories on what makes a person suicidal.

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  • “Arianna Rebolini writes with awe-inducing clarity, emotional honesty, and intellectual rigor, taking on the immense complexity of suicide and the profound questions it raises. With piercing and deeply personal insight, she reframes the experience of motherhood, exploring how the specter of suicide can shape and fracture a mother’s sense of self. There are readers for whom this may become the most important book they ever read.”

    Chloé Cooper Jones, author of Easy Beauty: A Memoir

  • “A brave narrative of radical empathy both for oneself and for others confronting the darkest darkness..”

    Kirkus Reviews

  • “Both an act of defiant self-expression—an insistence on vulnerability over shame—and an academic exploration that asks seriously: 'What is making us want to die?'"

    Chicago Review of Books

  • “Rather than focus solely on the role of mental health in suicide, Rebolini questions the impact of predatory capitalism on the ability to live a good life. How might a country that strips its citizens of health care, employment, and housing play a role in wanting to die? What responsibility should society have in making life better for its most marginalized people? Better offers an insightful, vital portrait of suicide that makes no attempt to euphemize or diminish its subject..”

    Isle McElroy, Vulture’s Best Books of 2025

  • “Better is a beautifully lucid and generous exploration of suicidality, deftly zooming in on intimate moments within the author's life, and out to the systemic failures that decimate communities and leave us all at risk. Rebolini interrogates the linear notion of getting better, courageously asking how we might learn to live with the entirety of ourselves, including mental illness and suicide—while treating these painful topics with incredible sensitivity and curiosity."

    Lydia Kiesling, author of Mobility

  • “Beautiful, propulsive and revealing, Rebolini's approach to her subject is transformative. Better is an act of service to those who have not yet felt seen or considered in discussions around mental health and suicidality. It’s a rare book that serves both as a relief and a rallying cry."

    Erika Swyler, author of We Lived on the Horizon

  • “Better is unlike any memoir I’ve ever read. It’s part cultural commentary, part research, part confessional. Above all, it’s brutally candid and features page-turning anecdotes about her own late-night, early-morning, mid-day episodes of staggering despair. It’s also a strangely and beautifully optimistic reverie on coming clean about our darkest and most intimate struggles while slowly coming to terms with the idea that we might possibly be worthy of love, help, and…life."

    Hannah Pittard, author of We Are Too Many

Public Relations

“Written with wit and charm... Heaney and Rebolini have crafted Cinderella for the modern age.”
— Kirkus Reviews

AMAZON EDITOR'S PICK FOR BEST ROMANCE

Young PR star Rose Reed is thrown into the big leagues when her boss leaves town the day of the firm’s meeting with Archie Fox, a young, hot, internationally famous British singer-songwriter. The meeting is going badly until Rose suggests a staged romance with up-and-coming, young indie star Raya. He’ll do it, but only if Rose becomes his publicist.

As the faux-mance between Archie and Raya begins to rehabilitate Archie’s faltering career, Rose finds his herself having unexpected, inconvenient and definitely unprofessional feelings for the crooner. But do late night texts and impromptu burrito binges mean he feels the same? In the end, Rose will have to decide whether to let her fantasy crush go, or to risk her reputation to be with the charming, handsome, scoundrel-y but sweet pop star she’s grown to love.

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  • “[Public Relations] speaks right to my heart... Hooked me from the first page. As someone who has more than once fantasized about a famous person falling in love with me, I saw myself immediately in Rose's internal crush trajectory.”

    Kerri Jarema, Bustle

  • “The coauthors create a cast of characters and story with which readers will fall in love...an outstanding read.”

    Library Journal starred review

  • “Public Relations incisively captures the both hectic and structured world of celebrity PR. As devoted tabloid readers, self-imposed media critics and rom-com addicts, we eagerly devoured the scandalous relationship between bright-eyed Rose Reed and her charge, the not-so-unfamiliar Archie Fox (OK: rhymes with "Barry Miles"). If you keep tabs on celebs via Instagram and regularly refresh Oh No They Didn't!, you'll love Heaney and Rebolini's spin on an age-old tale of girl-meets-pop-star.”

    Bobby Finger and Lindsey Weber, co-hosts of Who? Weekly

  • “Rife with of-the-moment pop culture references, laugh-out-loud moments and hat-tips to internet culture, this book captures contemporary life in New York in one's mid-20s in vivid, honest detail."

    RT Book Reviews