maigahannatu 's review for:

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

4.0

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This is the story of a family with 12 children. Five of them are diagnosed with schizophrenia and one as bipolar. These diagnoses take place across the 1960's and 70's before therapy was considered socially acceptable and before little was known about the treatment of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. The book details the story of the family as well as of research on schizophrenia that has taken place. The author has done an incredible job of researching and compiling the information in an engaging format. The story is sad and shows how complex the issue is and how little is still known about what may trigger the beginning of schizophrenia in some. There are no easy answers!