[7] While the drug ecstasy was promoted as a way to make oneself happy in her travelogue, the book was described by Dave Haslam in a London Review of Books article as, "In many ways" not "a great advertisement for drug-taking" as her experiences are largely "joyless" and not transformative.

[8] Ian Penman in his Guardian review[9] thought the work "tentative" while Geraldine Bedell in The Observer described it as an "intelligent and absorbing book".

[vague] In May 2014, Aitkenhead's partner, Kids Company charity worker Tony Wilkinson, drowned in Jamaica while attempting to rescue one of the couple's two sons, who survived.

[14][15] Just over a year after Wilkinson died, Aitkenhead discovered she was suffering from an aggressive form of breast cancer with a genetic link.

[15][16][17] Aitkenhead was the winner of the BBC's 2020 Russell Prize for best writing for her article How a Jamaican Psychedelic Mushroom Retreat Helped Me Process My Grief, published in The Times.