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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
Let me start by saying this: I always have a blank sheet of paper as my bookmark to jot down notes as I read, to refer back to later while writing my book reviews. I didn’t write down any notes for this book. Not one! That wasn’t on purpose. I was completely engrossed in Believe Me, and forgot to do anything but read.
I’ve never watched the Real Housewives franchise, so I wasn’t coming into this book as a fan of the show. But I left this reading experience as a fan of Yolanda Hadid. Her strength, courage, tenacity, and kindness in the face of a very difficult chronic illness is inspiring. I learned so much about her journey and battle for health. She embraces conventional and unconventional medical treatments, doing her research to find out what may help her. I learned so much from this book, and I can’t recommend it enough.
The only slight downfall that I should mention is that Yolanda had a lot of unconventional, untested by the FDA treatments, that cost a lot of money. I hope that people don’t randomly think to try all the treatments without extensive research and guidance by a health care provider. She does warm about this multiple times throughout.
Believe Me is a book I will be thinking about for a long time.
I’ve never watched the Real Housewives franchise, so I wasn’t coming into this book as a fan of the show. But I left this reading experience as a fan of Yolanda Hadid. Her strength, courage, tenacity, and kindness in the face of a very difficult chronic illness is inspiring. I learned so much about her journey and battle for health. She embraces conventional and unconventional medical treatments, doing her research to find out what may help her. I learned so much from this book, and I can’t recommend it enough.
The only slight downfall that I should mention is that Yolanda had a lot of unconventional, untested by the FDA treatments, that cost a lot of money. I hope that people don’t randomly think to try all the treatments without extensive research and guidance by a health care provider. She does warm about this multiple times throughout.
Believe Me is a book I will be thinking about for a long time.
emotional
informative
fast-paced
She does have a story to tell with this book but I think she should have waited a bit write it. Her journey just doesn’t really end or have any significant improvement in it and fails to capture this in the right words.
At first it was very interesting but at the end she was just filling pages.
Also what’s up with the constant comparisons to aids??? It’s SO MANY TIMES
At first it was very interesting but at the end she was just filling pages.
Also what’s up with the constant comparisons to aids??? It’s SO MANY TIMES
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death
Minor: Vomit
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Yolanda Hadid writes about her long struggle with Lyme disease. She is unflinching in accounting the many procedures that she undergoes, including coffee enemas. Those who are devotees of alternative medicine will appreciate her journey into holistic medicine when conventional medicine fails to cure her. Fans of RHOBH will likely want to read this.
I read an advance copy and was not compensated.
I read an advance copy and was not compensated.
In this memoir, Yolanda Hadid narrates her years of struggle fighting chronic Lyme disease, and makes a point to detail all the different doctors she goes through and which of the protocols she follows are beneficial for her Lyme symptoms. Her emotional ups and downs are also captured, which I found very relatable.
I think this book is a great source of information, mainly support for Lyme sufferers as myself, since as Yolanda explains on the book through her experiences, this is a very unknown illness, not only to the general public but also to the medical circles. I didn't know about Yolanda Hadid until this book, but I appreciate she is making an effort to visibilize Lyme disease, an illness hard to diagnose and treat. The book, though, may not be for all, and unless I would not empathise so closely with her experience, maybe it would have been ardous to go through these 300 pages.
I think this book is a great source of information, mainly support for Lyme sufferers as myself, since as Yolanda explains on the book through her experiences, this is a very unknown illness, not only to the general public but also to the medical circles. I didn't know about Yolanda Hadid until this book, but I appreciate she is making an effort to visibilize Lyme disease, an illness hard to diagnose and treat. The book, though, may not be for all, and unless I would not empathise so closely with her experience, maybe it would have been ardous to go through these 300 pages.
From the Limelight to the LymeLife.
"Real Desperate Housewives of Beverly Hills" is a guilty pleasure of mine, so I was expecting this book to merely be continuation of the show, now only from Yolanda Hadid's perspective and with more details about her illness and her fight for a diagnosis. But I must admit this book is more than merely that. A lot more.
No guilty pleasure is to be found in the reading of this book, but the stark contrast to the supposed glamour of the show and the refreshing openess about the absurd pressures of the Hollywood life (from someone who you would think could fit into this world easily, being a former model) meant that I read this book within 24 hours. I simply couldn't leave Yolanda and her story and fight for visibility alone for long before I had to know what happend next and whether she could find a way out of the pain, doubt and terror that is LymeLife.
It's raw, honest and boldly open about Hadid's life and struggle with Lyme and its many many side effects and co-infections. Yolanda Hadid, knowing she is a woman of various priviledges, offers herself up for the reader as a guinea pig and tests a vast number of possible treatments for Lyme (all of which cost a lot of money and strain even her finances) so that others have a better guide for what works and what to actually spend their money on. Coming from Holland she is more than once baffled by the cruelty of the American Health Care System and openly critizes the present insurance policies for Lyme suffers.
She does this while sharing the pain and heartache that her own illness caused for her family and then husband (now ex) and also the horrorfying revelation of just how many people within her own network and family that also suffered from the same illness, unaware that it was infact not a figment of their own imagination but a real illness. An illness that certainly deserves more time and ressources in the search for better treaments and a cure.
Maybe not a book you wanna buy, but absolutely one you want to give a read.
"Real Desperate Housewives of Beverly Hills" is a guilty pleasure of mine, so I was expecting this book to merely be continuation of the show, now only from Yolanda Hadid's perspective and with more details about her illness and her fight for a diagnosis. But I must admit this book is more than merely that. A lot more.
No guilty pleasure is to be found in the reading of this book, but the stark contrast to the supposed glamour of the show and the refreshing openess about the absurd pressures of the Hollywood life (from someone who you would think could fit into this world easily, being a former model) meant that I read this book within 24 hours. I simply couldn't leave Yolanda and her story and fight for visibility alone for long before I had to know what happend next and whether she could find a way out of the pain, doubt and terror that is LymeLife.
It's raw, honest and boldly open about Hadid's life and struggle with Lyme and its many many side effects and co-infections. Yolanda Hadid, knowing she is a woman of various priviledges, offers herself up for the reader as a guinea pig and tests a vast number of possible treatments for Lyme (all of which cost a lot of money and strain even her finances) so that others have a better guide for what works and what to actually spend their money on. Coming from Holland she is more than once baffled by the cruelty of the American Health Care System and openly critizes the present insurance policies for Lyme suffers.
She does this while sharing the pain and heartache that her own illness caused for her family and then husband (now ex) and also the horrorfying revelation of just how many people within her own network and family that also suffered from the same illness, unaware that it was infact not a figment of their own imagination but a real illness. An illness that certainly deserves more time and ressources in the search for better treaments and a cure.
Maybe not a book you wanna buy, but absolutely one you want to give a read.
fast-paced
Yolanda is one of my favorite housewives. Her story about discovering she has Lyme Disease and the struggles and toll it took on her life around her is emotional and also powerful that she is doing what she can to find some kind of cure or help that is affordable to all.
informative
reflective
slow-paced