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4.13 AVERAGE
4.13 AVERAGE
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
Okay so I needed some time to think about this novel and here is why I liked it so much:
-It scared me in a way I didn't think was possible. I can't even begin to imagine what I would do if I was in Susannah's shoes. To be perfectly normal and then completely lose your mind is not something that is easy to deal with.
-I loved her narrative of her experience and how it started small but then turned into this entirely bizarre experience. It literally made my skin crawl.
-The technical side of this book was amazing. I mean I was absolutely drawn to all the psychological and medical terms that she used. I heard of some of them before, but this book definitely pushed me to do research of my own.
-I loved the fact that she made us question the medical field in the sense that a lot of doctors are overworked and don't have the time to give each patient thorough examinations. It illustrates how so many diseases go unnoticed or become misdiagnosed.
-I loved hearing about her recovery as much as I loved reading about the initial onset of the disease. It amazed me that her brain went through so much but was some how able to repair itself.
If you guys are definitely looking for a non-fiction book based in psychology I would definitely check this one out.
-It scared me in a way I didn't think was possible. I can't even begin to imagine what I would do if I was in Susannah's shoes. To be perfectly normal and then completely lose your mind is not something that is easy to deal with.
-I loved her narrative of her experience and how it started small but then turned into this entirely bizarre experience. It literally made my skin crawl.
-The technical side of this book was amazing. I mean I was absolutely drawn to all the psychological and medical terms that she used. I heard of some of them before, but this book definitely pushed me to do research of my own.
-I loved the fact that she made us question the medical field in the sense that a lot of doctors are overworked and don't have the time to give each patient thorough examinations. It illustrates how so many diseases go unnoticed or become misdiagnosed.
-I loved hearing about her recovery as much as I loved reading about the initial onset of the disease. It amazed me that her brain went through so much but was some how able to repair itself.
If you guys are definitely looking for a non-fiction book based in psychology I would definitely check this one out.