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3.39 AVERAGE
3.39 AVERAGE
Fine writing, just not for me. I couldn't find any common humanity with her.
Not everyone with a chronic illness or addiction or both should write a memoir. This was a shallow, boring, poorly-written mess.
This is a tough book. A memoir of a Iranian American woman’s struggle with illness and eventual diagnosis with late stage Lyme disease. Well written. Just challenging.
There was a lot of woe-is-me, which wasn't what I was hoping for in this type of memoir. Does it suck to have a chronic illness/disability sometimes? Definitely. But it isn't all battles, and that's not all we should be hearing about.
dark
informative
sad
slow-paced
A compelling memoir of a woman who has always felt sick. She's very adept at describing the despair and depression her younger self had while trying to navigate within a system that couldn't figure out what was wrong with her and often gaslit her about her body and health. What do you do if no one believes your experience?
Perhaps listening to the audio version of this book allowed me to gloss over some of the flaws that were so apparent to other readers, but I really enjoyed it. As someone who deals with chronic pain (if not chronic illness) and has also struggled with diagnosis and uncertainty, I appreciated the deeply personal nature of Khakpour's writing. The patient perspective is so often absent from these narratives and even when a memoir does get written, many can get bogged down in the medical details. It's an understandable impulse but one I'm glad Khakpour avoided, focusing instead on the impacts to her personal life and emotional reaction to her body's betrayal. I see how someone searching for medical answers may not find what they are looking for here, but for me, even as someone who leads a completely different kind of life, Khakpour's memoir really resonated.
There were a few noticeable issues that, like others have said, could have been fixed by a more careful editor. In the last chapter there are several passages repeated almost word for work from earlier sections. Very apparent in a book this short.
There were a few noticeable issues that, like others have said, could have been fixed by a more careful editor. In the last chapter there are several passages repeated almost word for work from earlier sections. Very apparent in a book this short.
This was immensely difficult to read- heartbreaking subject matter aside, I related to the absolute frustration of nor having a diagnosis/name of a thing one has been suffering, and I haven't dealt with a fraction of Porochista's experiences. An absolutely visceral read.
i could not connect with her writing style at all, the jumping back and forth in time made it really hard to get an overview of her life and fight with the illness