Reviews

This is a difficult book to review. The author keeps the audience at a distance balancing the personal perspective but from a colder less interpersonal writing style. Yet it does not skimp on the horrors and conflicts faced. It's an argument to say that to approach it more of a fictional style would have made such a story too overwhelming.

I will say that this is an incredibly informative and heartbreaking as well as inspiring tale. I certainly learned quite a lot.

abaumler's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

3.5

britprawat's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative sad medium-paced

3.0

nshea0926's review against another edition

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informative

3.5

bookish_emily's review against another edition

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4.0

This book is part family memoir/biography and part history of schizophrenia treatment and research. The Galvan family included 12 children, six of whom developed schizophrenia. This tragedy ultimately created a perfect sample for the study of schizophrenia’s potential genetic roots and played a key role in the nature vs nurture debate for this disease.

I enjoyed this book but thought it could have been shorter. It was somewhat fragmented and repetitive at times. It was interesting to learn more about how schizophrenia has been researched over time, and heartbreaking to learn about how difficult life was for all of the Galvans. It provides a more nuanced and realistic view of schizophrenia than most mainstream media, which makes it seem way more prevalent and dangerous than it actually is. Schizophrenia is actually a very rare disease compared to other types of mental illness.

If you like memoir-type books or want to learn more about schizophrenia, then you will probably like Hidden Valley Road.

ellarymt's review against another edition

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informative medium-paced

4.25

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