Steve:

I received a gift. It had my name on it. It is a story, a personal story about someone’s life.
Someone who led a life full of Misunderstandings, Misdiagnoses, Misbehaviour, Mistrust and probably Mistakes.
But I am not here to judge about his life; I am here to tell you that I think it is brave that the X trusted someone long enough to write down his story.

Cabinet of confessions is a semi-autobiographical book from X who has been through a lot since the day of his birth. All his memories and events are written and filed away in cabinets and he finds himself in his dark mind reliving most of them. With him is a mysterious women who acts as a guide.

This is not a fun book; there are very few light-hearted moments. This is a though, well-written book. The use of cabinets as a means of storing your most valued possessions and private belongings — aka your thoughts and memories — is a very creative method to make it all the more visual for the reader. Every file/memory picked from a cabinet is a chapter, so you can read them separately too.

Men don’t get sick, men don’t cry, men don’t have health issues unless they are physical…boy, are those statements wrong. We live in a world where people need to be fitted in nice little squares with neat little lids on them. If you, as a man, ever had a moment where you didn’t fit into one of those stupid boxes, I implore you to read this book. It may not be your story, you may not relate to X in one way or the other. You will recognize something though: feeling misunderstood, feeling abandoned, maybe you have seen those feelings in one of your friends.
Don’t ignore it.

There are plenty of references used in a clever way throughout the book: music groups, rock bands, card games and other creative outlets. Very recognizable for people who lived through the last 20-30 years or so. There are also plenty mentions of drugs and alcohol use: don’t let that dissuade you to read Cabinet of confessions. We all live a hard truth, some just harder than our own…

I recommend this book for people (mainly men) who felt any of the M’s I mentioned in the first paragraph.

Mike beek

A.N. Archy does a great job warning people at the start of the novel, however let me reiterate. This book isn’t for you, if any of these following topics are too much for you: Drug use, mental health problems, strong language, suicide and sexual activity both voluntary and not. 

Cabinet of confessions is a well written and dark story. Where the author weaves each threat of the story masterfully into one of what makes up this character. A punk/rebel that has never really felt he belonged, that now tells his own story, however painful that may be. 

Good points:
The author knows exactly who this character is and how he would react.
The story has a way to make you sympathetic, for a character who you’d probably avoid walking on the street. 
Whilst reading it, I felt that there were layers to the story that could only be scratched upon a first read through. A rich story, where you’ll gain more insights into the character/story upon multiple read throughs, even though the first time is already solid. 

Neutral point:
It has a lot of references to 90’s or 2000’s music and pop culture. If you are familiar it is fun, though a little awkward when you don’t know the reference material.

Shortcomings:
In some parts with multiple characters, I had difficulty with knowing to whom “he” or “she” was referring to, making the dialogue occasionally difficult to follow. 
At the start of each new story/thread, I unfortunately got a bit confused where/when this took place as often it wasn’t stated clearly. Though usually later on, I would get enough clues to figure it out.

All in all, a well written character story with some shortcomings. I’ll give it a 4 out of 5 stars.