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A review by ihavealibrarycard
Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
3.0
Ugh….so I really hate to downvote a memoir because it’s someone else’s experience, but this one was just……take my 3 stars but consider this one a 4/10. I read this one for the book club I host at work and then no one came (this is like my 5th no-show it’s fine) and I was actually relieved because I didn’t know how I was going to sit there for an hour discussing this book and NOT totally shit all over it.
First of all, I really didn’t love the journalistic writing style. It really read like a neverending article or a blog post. She would constantly say stuff like ‘little did I know that…” or “it would be several months before I…” and I know it’s weird but it bothered me because…I just wanted to get to that point chronologically. It took me out of the moment she was describing.
One fun easter egg complaint I have is regarding the audiobook/narrator. First off, an audiobook loses my interest when the narrator choice is an older voice. Susannah was in her early/mid-20s and her narrator sounded 50. Not only that, but whose decision was it to have her read the dialogue from different people in their foreign accents?? It was so unnecessary and SO ignorant -- the accents were plentiful and they were all SO BAD. There’s at least a Middle Eastern, Filipino, Jamaican, and I believe Indian accent. The accents were so not the move.
This book comes with a healthy amount of ableism (vaguely anti-autistic among other things lmao) and some fatphobia too, from when the author couldn’t stand her appearance after some time on medication and in the hospital; she refers to her weight gain/appearance as ‘Roasted Pig Syndrome’, and she doesn’t even use poor body image or eating disorder issues as a scapegoat to mask her prejudice.
It was surprising for her to acknowledge that the story would’ve turned out a lot differently had she not had the privilege of tons of money and support which she references often by talking about the rich community that her family vacations to, and also as a person with insurance and family who are willing to advocate for her.
This isn’t the usual critical lens I read my books through, but I couldn’t help but pinpoint all the flags in this one. It all really just seems par for the course/time period; I feel like maybe this book just didn’t age well, and I probably would have enjoyed it more if I had read it when it was published and when my social awareness was much less refined.
First of all, I really didn’t love the journalistic writing style. It really read like a neverending article or a blog post. She would constantly say stuff like ‘little did I know that…” or “it would be several months before I…” and I know it’s weird but it bothered me because…I just wanted to get to that point chronologically. It took me out of the moment she was describing.
One fun easter egg complaint I have is regarding the audiobook/narrator. First off, an audiobook loses my interest when the narrator choice is an older voice. Susannah was in her early/mid-20s and her narrator sounded 50. Not only that, but whose decision was it to have her read the dialogue from different people in their foreign accents?? It was so unnecessary and SO ignorant -- the accents were plentiful and they were all SO BAD. There’s at least a Middle Eastern, Filipino, Jamaican, and I believe Indian accent. The accents were so not the move.
This book comes with a healthy amount of ableism (vaguely anti-autistic among other things lmao) and some fatphobia too, from when the author couldn’t stand her appearance after some time on medication and in the hospital; she refers to her weight gain/appearance as ‘Roasted Pig Syndrome’, and she doesn’t even use poor body image or eating disorder issues as a scapegoat to mask her prejudice.
It was surprising for her to acknowledge that the story would’ve turned out a lot differently had she not had the privilege of tons of money and support which she references often by talking about the rich community that her family vacations to, and also as a person with insurance and family who are willing to advocate for her.
This isn’t the usual critical lens I read my books through, but I couldn’t help but pinpoint all the flags in this one. It all really just seems par for the course/time period; I feel like maybe this book just didn’t age well, and I probably would have enjoyed it more if I had read it when it was published and when my social awareness was much less refined.