A review by brogan7
Sick: A Memoir by Porochista Khakpour

challenging medium-paced

3.0

I was disappointed in this book because I felt it didn't increase my empathy, it rather decreased it. Intellectually, I could think about empathy for this woman and her story, but in my heart, I didn't feel it as I was reading her story.  A tumbling tale of addiction and problematic relationships, it becomes more and more confusing the deeper you get into it.  For a while the story-following-the-setting works, but by 3/4 of the way through the book, the places all seem interchangeable, as do the men, and the only constancy is that her life is falling apart.
Two things are particularly striking to me about the story: that she never stops to take care of herself, for one moment, and that none of the other people in the book are particularly real.  There is never a time when she goes: oh, I need to do things differently, I'm on too many pills, what I'm doing isn't working.  She goes jumping from one bandwagon to another, looking for a miracle cure, which I understand the desperation for, but also seems, externally, as so evidently a rabbithole.  And the other people in her story, the boyfriends, the friends, the strange connections she makes with people of dubious reliability and care...none of them really strike you, other than perhaps as flashing a million alarm bells.  Even her parents are rather two-dimensional.
It's unfortunate, because these stories are important, but I would recommend Abby Norman's book,  if you're looking for something more analytical, Sonya Huber, if you're looking for more insight and wild beauty; also Julie Devaney, Anna Lyndsey, or Tessa Miller.
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