Brain on Fire
Review:
Cahalan is clearly a great journalist. Her writing is engaging and enjoyable to read while still being a cautionary tale. This book was written to challenge while still being upbeat. It changed much of what I thought about medicine and diagnosis and showed the happy story behind the sadness. The story was scientific without being a bore like many books tend to be. I was on the verge of tears reading this book, but I was also so happy that her story helped many people be diagnosed. It is lucky that she happened to be a journalist at a prominent newspaper and could inform people that this illness even exists. Just because I read this book makes me feel safer and more secure in the fact that if this happens to me, doctors may have a better chance of diagnosing it. I have been trying to convince everyone around me to read this book because of its relatability and readability. Her story resonated with me because I also had a seizure disorder up until a year ago, therefore I could relate to her struggles. This made my reading experience even more raw and devastating. It was scary to read at some points because, in my head, I was thinking, what if this happened to me? What if I was left undiagnosed in a mental hospital somewhere? To be trapped in your mind has to be one of the scariest experiences in the world. Cahalan is inspiring and brave. The way she described the experience with memory, videos, and stories made it haunting and complex to read but also kept me at the edge of my seat. This is one of those books that I know will never leave my book collection and my five-star reviews. I even felt like the book had aspects of a romance novel because of her ongoing and long-lasting relationship with her then only short-term boyfriend, which is very different from such a devastating book. Those were some of the many things that hooked me to the story and kept me there. You can feel her voice shining throughout, which is the mark of an excellent writer.
