A review by sagireadinglist
Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker

4.25

Schizophrenia is still by and large a stigmatized mental illness. I don't know much about the illness myself, so I ended up learning a lot while reading this book. One of the things I appreciated is that Kolker never demonizes anyone in the Galvin family and doesn't pin the blame on anyone. Kolker gave the story of the Galvin family nuance and much-needed context so we can understand and interpret what happened and what went wrong for ourselves. Because in truth, it's never easy to point out a clear reason for why mental illness manifests in a person, let alone 6 out of 12 children. 

Also, this book is surprisingly easy to read for such a complex subject, so even if you don't know much about psychology, you can still pick up this book without getting lost.