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4.12 AVERAGE
4.12 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-paced
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
Brain On Fire My Month Of Madness By Susannah Cahalan Is A True Account Of This Women's Rare Diagnosis And It's Very Interesting I Really Liked Reading This Book It Was So Informative And Interesting To Read About This And I Really Enjoyed It
Update I Watched The Netflix Movie And It Was Really Good And Chloe Grace Moretz Did A Great Job In This Movie And I Love Learning About How Your Brain Could Be On Fire
Loved This Book And Movie
Highly Recommend It !!!!!!!
Update I Watched The Netflix Movie And It Was Really Good And Chloe Grace Moretz Did A Great Job In This Movie And I Love Learning About How Your Brain Could Be On Fire
Loved This Book And Movie
Highly Recommend It !!!!!!!
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
One of my oldest fears is suddenly and unexpectedly losing my mind. This doesn’t really bother me that much these days since I figure all of the good bits are already gone, and I can still show up to work on time. Susannah Cahalan did not get so lucky. Coming down with a strange list of symptoms, she quickly wound up in the hospital suffering from a wide range of neurological issues from hallucinations to catatonia. Doctors putted around a bunch of ideas until she was diagnosed with the very rare anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis.
This is all in the blurb for the book though, as is her recovery and a lot of hyperbolic phrases about how brave she was. Brave or not, her situation was both terrible and fascinating. The core of the book centers on the bizarre symptoms Cahalan exhibited; she seems to have suffered from almost every symptom possible. This is interspersed with the investigation of her time in the hospital, as she has almost no memory of suffering from the autoimmune disease. There is also a rather clear-sighted (if unfortunately short) commentary on how her case and the cases of others simply cannot be dealt with properly by our horrendously malformed health care system.
All of this makes for a fine read. But it doesn’t quite make for a fine book. Cahalan, a reporter, originally penned her story for a newspaper article, which I don’t feel the need to read but I’m sure is good. Stretching all this out into a book however seemed to be a tall order. Things do get a bit repetitive at times and the narritve sometimes goes back and forth in time awkwardly. Cahalan is obviously best writing in short spurts; the average page count for a chapter is around 4.75 pages. Article length perhaps?
All told, the memoir is interesting and unique enough to be enjoyable, especially if you are into medical oddities. I wonder though if I could have gotten away with just reading the article.
This is all in the blurb for the book though, as is her recovery and a lot of hyperbolic phrases about how brave she was. Brave or not, her situation was both terrible and fascinating. The core of the book centers on the bizarre symptoms Cahalan exhibited; she seems to have suffered from almost every symptom possible. This is interspersed with the investigation of her time in the hospital, as she has almost no memory of suffering from the autoimmune disease. There is also a rather clear-sighted (if unfortunately short) commentary on how her case and the cases of others simply cannot be dealt with properly by our horrendously malformed health care system.
All of this makes for a fine read. But it doesn’t quite make for a fine book. Cahalan, a reporter, originally penned her story for a newspaper article, which I don’t feel the need to read but I’m sure is good. Stretching all this out into a book however seemed to be a tall order. Things do get a bit repetitive at times and the narritve sometimes goes back and forth in time awkwardly. Cahalan is obviously best writing in short spurts; the average page count for a chapter is around 4.75 pages. Article length perhaps?
All told, the memoir is interesting and unique enough to be enjoyable, especially if you are into medical oddities. I wonder though if I could have gotten away with just reading the article.
emotional
informative
For anyone that's curious, this isn't really a memoir.
She's wordy and detailed (often casually dropping medical jargon, though not without context), but Cahalan isn't really preoccupied with her internal experience and visceral imagery so much as she's dedicated to a journalist's detached perspective of her own physical body's betrayal. Brain on Fire reads like a medical mystery, with doctors frantically searching for an accurate diagnosis while a patient and her family struggles to remain in tact both physically and emotionally. Cahalan does her best to break down her symptoms and process of diagnosis into bite-sized, easily digestible details, sprinkling them throughout the text. Occasionally it's a bit hard to manage, but it's never completely overwhelming.
Cahalan doesn't really delve into the emotional turmoil of her disease because she can't remember most of it. She's entirely reliant on her family's journals and retellings of her experience to convey the direness of her own state. She's frank about her shortcomings while vulnerable about her lack of control. She never asks forgiveness or sympathy of the reader, she only presents the story as it happened.
Cahalan is a gifted writer who is clearly in command of her narrative even when she has lost control of her mind. This book is a must-read for anyone who has ever felt beaten down or crazy for not trusting a knee-jerk diagnosis. Sometimes it is a zebra.
She's wordy and detailed (often casually dropping medical jargon, though not without context), but Cahalan isn't really preoccupied with her internal experience and visceral imagery so much as she's dedicated to a journalist's detached perspective of her own physical body's betrayal. Brain on Fire reads like a medical mystery, with doctors frantically searching for an accurate diagnosis while a patient and her family struggles to remain in tact both physically and emotionally. Cahalan does her best to break down her symptoms and process of diagnosis into bite-sized, easily digestible details, sprinkling them throughout the text. Occasionally it's a bit hard to manage, but it's never completely overwhelming.
Cahalan doesn't really delve into the emotional turmoil of her disease because she can't remember most of it. She's entirely reliant on her family's journals and retellings of her experience to convey the direness of her own state. She's frank about her shortcomings while vulnerable about her lack of control. She never asks forgiveness or sympathy of the reader, she only presents the story as it happened.
Cahalan is a gifted writer who is clearly in command of her narrative even when she has lost control of her mind. This book is a must-read for anyone who has ever felt beaten down or crazy for not trusting a knee-jerk diagnosis. Sometimes it is a zebra.
So, like you know how the first four seasons of House were super awesome and stuff? This book is sort of like that, except instead of seeing it from House’s perspective while he’s being an asshole, we see it from the patient’s, and we are intimately connected with her as she slowly and surely comes unraveled totally and completely. She has no control over her actions, she loses all sense of herself and connection with her friends and family and co-workers, and the doctors have no idea what is going on.
It’s fucking terrifying.
Susannah Cahalan was a young reporter at the New York Post when she suddenly began to experience symptoms of psychosis. Paranoia, hallucinations, scattered thoughts. The book actually opens with her waking up in a hospital bed and having no memory of the previous month, during which time she almost died.
This book is an attempt for Susannah to reconstruct that lost month via reporting. Because she has no memory of most of the time herself, she tells the story the same way she would if it hadn’t happened to her, through interviews and research and documentation. I think it’s a testament to her writing skill that the parts she doesn’t remember are equally as moving as the beginning and end of her medical crisis, which she does remember. The resulting book is equal parts medical memoir and mystery. The what of what’s happening is just as important as Susannah’s struggle to recover and make meaning out of her experiences. It’s utterly compelling.
This is also a super quick read, both because it’s pretty short (261 pages hardcover) and because once you pick it up, you don’t want to put it down again. I highly recommend picking this book up if anything about it sounds even remotely interesting. I read this in hardcover, but I’ve heard the audio is great as well. I’m not sure if there are any other books out there quite like this one, but I would definitely be interested in reading more medical mystery non-fiction in the future.
[4.5 stars]
It’s fucking terrifying.
Susannah Cahalan was a young reporter at the New York Post when she suddenly began to experience symptoms of psychosis. Paranoia, hallucinations, scattered thoughts. The book actually opens with her waking up in a hospital bed and having no memory of the previous month, during which time she almost died.
This book is an attempt for Susannah to reconstruct that lost month via reporting. Because she has no memory of most of the time herself, she tells the story the same way she would if it hadn’t happened to her, through interviews and research and documentation. I think it’s a testament to her writing skill that the parts she doesn’t remember are equally as moving as the beginning and end of her medical crisis, which she does remember. The resulting book is equal parts medical memoir and mystery. The what of what’s happening is just as important as Susannah’s struggle to recover and make meaning out of her experiences. It’s utterly compelling.
This is also a super quick read, both because it’s pretty short (261 pages hardcover) and because once you pick it up, you don’t want to put it down again. I highly recommend picking this book up if anything about it sounds even remotely interesting. I read this in hardcover, but I’ve heard the audio is great as well. I’m not sure if there are any other books out there quite like this one, but I would definitely be interested in reading more medical mystery non-fiction in the future.
[4.5 stars]
3.5
Solid memoir that describes her month of madness. I learned a lot.
Solid memoir that describes her month of madness. I learned a lot.
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced