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jilly7922's review against another edition
4.0
This book is the true story of Dr. Perry Baird. It is about his daughter trying to know her father through his manuscripts, letters, and his medical records. Her father was one of the most successful doctors of his time. He was a brilliant man, an outstanding member of his community. He was able to succeed for most of the time despite fighting a mental illness of Manic Depression. Little did anyone know that he himself attempted to research and find a cure to his own illness, but sadly the depth of his illness stopped him. It is about Dr. Perry Baird's barbaric experience in numerous institutions for the insane. He suffered during a point in history of where no one knew what to do or how to handle people with mental disorders. It was a time of where all this was swept under the rug, and is why one day in Mimi Baird's life her father seemed to disappear for no known reason. It is about her search to know the father she never got to know.
Overall I rated this book four stars out of five. This was a well told, heartbreaking but inspiring story to read. I was amazed at Dr. Baird's own insight he had throughout his life. Especially the insight he had on his own illness that many others in Dr. Baird's life failed to have. It was as if Mimi Baird allowed the reader to view her father's life through a telescope. This story was raw, transparent, real, and genuine. It brought all the hidden stuff we have swept under the rug, it brought it all to life.
This book was a very intimate glimpse into the life of a man battling his inner demons that have haunted him his entire life. This book is one for all to read, and we all need to take the chance and grab it now before the movie comes out.
I would like to thank Blogging For Books, Mimi Baird, and Penguin Random House for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Come and read my blog at http://turnthepagereviewsbyjill.blogspot.com/
Overall I rated this book four stars out of five. This was a well told, heartbreaking but inspiring story to read. I was amazed at Dr. Baird's own insight he had throughout his life. Especially the insight he had on his own illness that many others in Dr. Baird's life failed to have. It was as if Mimi Baird allowed the reader to view her father's life through a telescope. This story was raw, transparent, real, and genuine. It brought all the hidden stuff we have swept under the rug, it brought it all to life.
This book was a very intimate glimpse into the life of a man battling his inner demons that have haunted him his entire life. This book is one for all to read, and we all need to take the chance and grab it now before the movie comes out.
I would like to thank Blogging For Books, Mimi Baird, and Penguin Random House for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Come and read my blog at http://turnthepagereviewsbyjill.blogspot.com/
janetteh's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
tense
medium-paced
5.0
mesy_mark's review against another edition
I listened to this book through the audiobook format. The narration had three voices to the track. A female voice for the author's insight, a male voice for the musing of the author's father, and a final male voice reading off hospital transcripts. Each voice in this book was easy to listen to and did not get on my nerves.
Mimi is a woman on a mission to find out what happened to her father. Her father was a great Dr. but he was eventually hospitalization for his bipolar disorder up until the end. he has a lobotomy and then was able to go home since it destroyed his real self </spoilerr>
The main pros of this book are the I loved the section of Dr. Perry's own words about being in a hospital and what was going on in his mind.
Mimi is a woman on a mission to find out what happened to her father. Her father was a great Dr. but he was eventually hospitalization for his bipolar disorder up until the end.
The main pros of this book are the I loved the section of Dr. Perry's own words about being in a hospital and what was going on in his mind.
greenikat89's review against another edition
3.0
The first 2/3rds of the book are more interesting as you read the actual thoughts of Mimi’s father and experience what he does. The last portion is how Mimi came to put together the book and know more about her father. Quick and easy read.
andymoon's review against another edition
4.0
Received a copy of this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
A deeply raw first-hand account of what it was like to be mentally ill and hospitalized in the 1940's. With Dr. Baird's own writing, you can see the descent deeper and deeper into his bipolar disorder.
I do wish the book touched a bit more on his research. It would've been nice to see how his ideas started out, and his research process.
But I'd recommend this book to anyone that wants a first hand account of dealing with mental illness in a time where it was completely taboo.
A deeply raw first-hand account of what it was like to be mentally ill and hospitalized in the 1940's. With Dr. Baird's own writing, you can see the descent deeper and deeper into his bipolar disorder.
I do wish the book touched a bit more on his research. It would've been nice to see how his ideas started out, and his research process.
But I'd recommend this book to anyone that wants a first hand account of dealing with mental illness in a time where it was completely taboo.
mlkai's review
3.0
there were some parts of this novel that were very real and hard to read. there were other parts of this novel that were hard to read because they just bored me.
the second part was better in my opinion than the first half, and i mainly think that's because the pacing is much quicker. dr. baird's memoir was very intriguing but monotonous and repetitive. i realize that this is because his routine in the mental hospitals were repetitive but i still got bored. this might be because i was not reading at my normal pace as i was reading it with my father and would forget details after a few days of not reading.
overall, i'm glad i read this book, however it's just another book to me.
the second part was better in my opinion than the first half, and i mainly think that's because the pacing is much quicker. dr. baird's memoir was very intriguing but monotonous and repetitive. i realize that this is because his routine in the mental hospitals were repetitive but i still got bored. this might be because i was not reading at my normal pace as i was reading it with my father and would forget details after a few days of not reading.
overall, i'm glad i read this book, however it's just another book to me.
kristy_k's review against another edition
5.0
I received an advanced reader's copy from Read It Forward in return for an honest review.
I am having a hard time putting into words just how powerful He Wanted the Moon was for me. It was utterly fascinating and heart wrenchingly tragic. Mimi Baird, the author and Dr. Baird’s daughter, transcribed his story from the withered pieces of paper he had written on into this beautiful narrative. Then she added her own memories and journey through this process.
Dr. Baird suffered from manic depression in a time where the mentally ill were treated similar to criminals. They were locked up, treated poorly, forgotten. He writes of the barbaric and brutal treatments received. They strapped him to beds and stripped him of dignity. He speaks of his manic episodes, his delusions and thoughts, his actions and words. Mimi Baird inserts pieces of Dr. Baird’s medical records to give a fuller picture of his state of being. He was overactive, exuberant, destructive, and sometimes violent. All the while, the genius within the man could still be seen. He wasn’t blind to what he was doing; he was desperate to find a cure, or at least a more humane method of treatment.
Mimi Baird grew up without a father. After he was institutionalized when she was six, everyone acted as if he had suddenly stopped existing. Mental disorders were taboo in the 1940s and it was common practice to just cut off the relationships with the mentally ill. She never stopped wondering about her father and decades after he passed away she was fortunate enough to be presented with his transcripts. You can feel the hurt, the loss, the peace and finally the closure that she gets from discovering her father’s world.
The words on these pages impacted me. I am one of those who hate marks in her books, yet I found myself with a highlighter in hand, permanently scarring this book as it had done to me. He Wanted the Moon gives such great inside into the mind of a manically depressed individual and into the lives of the friends and families who are affected by this disease. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever had even the slightest interest in mental illnesses.
I am having a hard time putting into words just how powerful He Wanted the Moon was for me. It was utterly fascinating and heart wrenchingly tragic. Mimi Baird, the author and Dr. Baird’s daughter, transcribed his story from the withered pieces of paper he had written on into this beautiful narrative. Then she added her own memories and journey through this process.
Dr. Baird suffered from manic depression in a time where the mentally ill were treated similar to criminals. They were locked up, treated poorly, forgotten. He writes of the barbaric and brutal treatments received. They strapped him to beds and stripped him of dignity. He speaks of his manic episodes, his delusions and thoughts, his actions and words. Mimi Baird inserts pieces of Dr. Baird’s medical records to give a fuller picture of his state of being. He was overactive, exuberant, destructive, and sometimes violent. All the while, the genius within the man could still be seen. He wasn’t blind to what he was doing; he was desperate to find a cure, or at least a more humane method of treatment.
Mimi Baird grew up without a father. After he was institutionalized when she was six, everyone acted as if he had suddenly stopped existing. Mental disorders were taboo in the 1940s and it was common practice to just cut off the relationships with the mentally ill. She never stopped wondering about her father and decades after he passed away she was fortunate enough to be presented with his transcripts. You can feel the hurt, the loss, the peace and finally the closure that she gets from discovering her father’s world.
The words on these pages impacted me. I am one of those who hate marks in her books, yet I found myself with a highlighter in hand, permanently scarring this book as it had done to me. He Wanted the Moon gives such great inside into the mind of a manically depressed individual and into the lives of the friends and families who are affected by this disease. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever had even the slightest interest in mental illnesses.
librarian_lisa_22's review against another edition
4.0
Extremely compelling. I’m so grateful that the field has discovered a less barbaric, more humane, more successful way to deal with manic depression.
liralen's review against another edition
4.0
First a bit befuddling and then fascinating. Baird was six when her father disappeared. "He's away," said her mother. "He's away," she said again, when asked. And this was the forties, and Baird had been raised not to ask questions.
As an adult, Baird slowly started piecing together her father's life -- from the small snippets of information her mother would release, from others who had known him, and from his own memoirs, which a cousin had been safekeeping all those years.
The book is told in two parts: The first section contains those memoirs her father wrote, which cover a few months in 1944, the year he left Baird's life. Baird has carefully interspersed notes from her father's medical files, but for the most part it is her father telling his story -- that of a manic-depressive man (he would now be called bipolar), far more manic than depressive, going in and out of hospital. His story is so terribly depressing and also so terribly interesting. The treatment available at the time was limited at best and flat-out abusive at worst, and it is so clear from his writings that that treatment was not going to be useful. He talks of another patient, a man who would repeat the same things over and over -- things like oh God, oh God, what'll I do? And it exhausted patients and attendants alike, and they would lock him up and sometimes beat him. (Obviously impossible to know what was going on in that man's head, but I'd imagine that the treatment he received only confirmed his fears.)
But it is also clear -- first from his writing, and then, more starkly, from the treatment notes -- that Baird's father is an unreliable narrator. I pray to God that in the future I shall be able to remember that once one has crossed the line from the normal walks of life into a psychopathic hospital, one is separated from friends and relatives by walls thicker than stone; walls of prejudice and superstition, he writes (56), though of course his medical license was soon after revoked. He is sometimes quite lucid in discussing his time in hospital, but at other times he seems still manic, or at least to believe that his past actions were far more rational than they were. Moreover, the medical notes present a far bleaker -- and often a far more violent -- picture than he does.
His memoir spans a fairly short time period, but in the second part of the book Baird takes up the story and fills in a lot of blanks. It's hard stuff. Although she didn't know it at the time, her father's future seemed ever bleaker; meanwhile, for Baird, the present was bleak. After my mother remarried, she says, it was as if I had lose both of my parents (172). She saw her father briefly when she was thirteen, received a very unfortunate letter from him at eighteen, and...that was it.
Still, later, she managed to piece together a great deal of his life, and a great deal about manic-depression/bipolar. I was initially a bit irritated that her father's manuscript stood more or less on its own (I wanted commentary), but once I reached Baird's section it made a great deal more sense. Much more interesting to read his side of things first, and separately, although of course with those medical notes built in to complicate matters a bit. (In that second section, Baird's section, I found most of my reservations about the first section melting away.) It's too bad that we can't see her father's interpretations of later times, as things went further downhill -- but of course if that had been possible, perhaps this book (and the digging it took) would not have been necessary.
I received a free copy of this book via a Goodreads giveaway.
As an adult, Baird slowly started piecing together her father's life -- from the small snippets of information her mother would release, from others who had known him, and from his own memoirs, which a cousin had been safekeeping all those years.
The book is told in two parts: The first section contains those memoirs her father wrote, which cover a few months in 1944, the year he left Baird's life. Baird has carefully interspersed notes from her father's medical files, but for the most part it is her father telling his story -- that of a manic-depressive man (he would now be called bipolar), far more manic than depressive, going in and out of hospital. His story is so terribly depressing and also so terribly interesting. The treatment available at the time was limited at best and flat-out abusive at worst, and it is so clear from his writings that that treatment was not going to be useful. He talks of another patient, a man who would repeat the same things over and over -- things like oh God, oh God, what'll I do? And it exhausted patients and attendants alike, and they would lock him up and sometimes beat him. (Obviously impossible to know what was going on in that man's head, but I'd imagine that the treatment he received only confirmed his fears.)
But it is also clear -- first from his writing, and then, more starkly, from the treatment notes -- that Baird's father is an unreliable narrator. I pray to God that in the future I shall be able to remember that once one has crossed the line from the normal walks of life into a psychopathic hospital, one is separated from friends and relatives by walls thicker than stone; walls of prejudice and superstition, he writes (56), though of course his medical license was soon after revoked. He is sometimes quite lucid in discussing his time in hospital, but at other times he seems still manic, or at least to believe that his past actions were far more rational than they were. Moreover, the medical notes present a far bleaker -- and often a far more violent -- picture than he does.
His memoir spans a fairly short time period, but in the second part of the book Baird takes up the story and fills in a lot of blanks. It's hard stuff. Although she didn't know it at the time, her father's future seemed ever bleaker; meanwhile, for Baird, the present was bleak. After my mother remarried, she says, it was as if I had lose both of my parents (172). She saw her father briefly when she was thirteen, received a very unfortunate letter from him at eighteen, and...that was it.
Still, later, she managed to piece together a great deal of his life, and a great deal about manic-depression/bipolar. I was initially a bit irritated that her father's manuscript stood more or less on its own (I wanted commentary), but once I reached Baird's section it made a great deal more sense. Much more interesting to read his side of things first, and separately, although of course with those medical notes built in to complicate matters a bit. (In that second section, Baird's section, I found most of my reservations about the first section melting away.) It's too bad that we can't see her father's interpretations of later times, as things went further downhill -- but of course if that had been possible, perhaps this book (and the digging it took) would not have been necessary.
I received a free copy of this book via a Goodreads giveaway.
buggy's review against another edition
3.0
This book should honestly be a must read for everyone. I knew about the brutal treatment people in the past underwent in mental hospitals and asylums, but this story truly personified the horrors and made concrete realities of it. Not just the pain that patients experienced, but the pain their families felt as well. I'm only rating this 3 stars because it was heartbreaking, and at times incredibly difficult to read and come to terms with the content. This book was challenging for me, but I am better for having read it, and would recommend for anyone who has had their lives impacted by mental illness.