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A review by shelfexplanatory
Inferno: A Memoir of Motherhood and Madness by Catherine Cho
5.0
4.5/5
This is more my impressions than an actual review, but I really appreciated how Cho weaved the themes of her past and imperfect upbringing together with the events of her psychosis. The parallels between how she was treated in the maternity ward and the psych ward were equally compelling... in both experiences, there were times were she felt like she was being treated as a sub-human. Through all these experiences, Cho touches on the small moments and what it means to be human - however messy and imperfect - in well-timed moments of clarity.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan, as there are obviously similar themes. However, between the two, I feel like INFERNO accomplished more and went deeper than just the shock value of her psychosis. That being said, the sections of the book when she is deep in her psychosis were written in a way where it felt like you're right in there with her.
And for what it's worth, I picked this book up while on a very long reading hiatus/slump and couldn't put it down. So there's that.
This is more my impressions than an actual review, but I really appreciated how Cho weaved the themes of her past and imperfect upbringing together with the events of her psychosis. The parallels between how she was treated in the maternity ward and the psych ward were equally compelling... in both experiences, there were times were she felt like she was being treated as a sub-human. Through all these experiences, Cho touches on the small moments and what it means to be human - however messy and imperfect - in well-timed moments of clarity.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan, as there are obviously similar themes. However, between the two, I feel like INFERNO accomplished more and went deeper than just the shock value of her psychosis. That being said, the sections of the book when she is deep in her psychosis were written in a way where it felt like you're right in there with her.
And for what it's worth, I picked this book up while on a very long reading hiatus/slump and couldn't put it down. So there's that.