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4.13 AVERAGE
4.13 AVERAGE
I thought this was an extremely interesting and enlightening look at Cahalan's situation and the experience of other sufferers of this disease. I love "cool facts about the brain," as my mom would say, and so of course I would enjoy this. I was bothered by the lack of a description of how she's doing at the end; obviously, we know from the beginning that she's recovered--since she's writing this book--but she never really gave us a clear sense of "I'm better in X ways, but not in Y" or even of where she is in her recovery process. Otherwise, though, fascinating read.
Brilliant and vulnerable first person account of a disease we still have so much to learn about. A humbling reminder for clinicians of the importance of continued medical education and always striving to do best by our patients.
I found this book haunting and engaging. I thought the author did a great job of piecing together her memories during a dark and scary disease process. I enjoyed her writing style.
a fascinating and incredible story that i can only begin to understand.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
I usually prefer the escapism of fantasy and fiction to the reality of memoir, but something made me pick this up inspite of my prejudice. Susannah Cahalan was a rising journalist at the New York Post when she appeared to have a mental breakdown and spent several months traveling to and from different hospitals, undergoing test after test while doctors and psychiatrists struggled to find a diagnosis. She suffered memory loss during the worst period of her illness and this book is her investigation into what happened to her and her family while she was in hospital.
This book is a starkly honest approach to investigating Susannah's own personal experience of her illness, and I certainly found it as gripping as the abstact promised it would be. It's an emotionally challenging read at times, but I think this is appropriate given the heartbreak surrounding the illness she had - and others are yet to be diagnosed with.
This book is a starkly honest approach to investigating Susannah's own personal experience of her illness, and I certainly found it as gripping as the abstact promised it would be. It's an emotionally challenging read at times, but I think this is appropriate given the heartbreak surrounding the illness she had - and others are yet to be diagnosed with.
This feels a little like one of those books that was written because a story got a lot of press, and the author, who is a halfway decent writer since she works for a newspaper, decides, "Hey, why not write a whole book?" Perhaps she was even approached by an agent or editor with a request for something, since the subject matter is enticing enough to sell well. That is to say, something about the telling of this story felt "forced" and a little disingenuous. Perhaps Susannah's background as a journalist predisposes her to a rather rote telling of events: "This happened, and I felt this way. That happened, and I felt another way." There seemed to be a lot of "telling" rather than showing, and the experience ultimately felt distant. This is understandable, since Susannah doesn't actually remember most of her "month of madness" and instead reconstructs it from journal entries and hospital footage.
I found the last few chapters of the book to be most intriguing, I think because in them Cahalan's background as a journalist becomes a strength rather than a weakness. She pulls reviews brain research and discusses the reaction she's received from others with similar experiences after going public with her story and also reflects upon how the experience has changed her; she will never be the same despite having made a "full recovery," nor will those who loved her. In the ending, I found the kind of "meaning-making" that was absent for most of the book.
I've often seen this book compared to [b:January First: A Child's Descent into Madness and Her Father's Struggle to Save Her|12453610|January First A Child's Descent into Madness and Her Father's Struggle to Save Her|Michael Schofield|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1360096723s/12453610.jpg|17436960], and I can understand the comparison as they both deal with the struggle of identifying a neurological issue that defines easy categorization. But as far as dramatic storytelling goes, I found January to be the more captivating of the two.
I found the last few chapters of the book to be most intriguing, I think because in them Cahalan's background as a journalist becomes a strength rather than a weakness. She pulls reviews brain research and discusses the reaction she's received from others with similar experiences after going public with her story and also reflects upon how the experience has changed her; she will never be the same despite having made a "full recovery," nor will those who loved her. In the ending, I found the kind of "meaning-making" that was absent for most of the book.
I've often seen this book compared to [b:January First: A Child's Descent into Madness and Her Father's Struggle to Save Her|12453610|January First A Child's Descent into Madness and Her Father's Struggle to Save Her|Michael Schofield|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1360096723s/12453610.jpg|17436960], and I can understand the comparison as they both deal with the struggle of identifying a neurological issue that defines easy categorization. But as far as dramatic storytelling goes, I found January to be the more captivating of the two.
This book isn't my normal genre but it held my attention enough to finish. There was a lot of medical stuff that I ended up skimming through but the personality and story telling was good.i don't think I'd read it again but it was good enough to finish
El sistema sanitario cada vez abandona a más pacientes. Cada vez hay más profesionales sin ningún tipo de vocación y con muy pocas ganas de trabajar.
Por suerte para la protagonista, la terminaron derivando a quien si quería luchar por averiguar que pasaba y tratar; de quedarse con el primer médico habría terminado en un centro psiquiátrico y muriendo.
Por suerte para la protagonista, la terminaron derivando a quien si quería luchar por averiguar que pasaba y tratar; de quedarse con el primer médico habría terminado en un centro psiquiátrico y muriendo.
challenging
dark
emotional
lighthearted
mysterious