Helpful Score: 2
This book is a true to life, "I experienced this"! In dealing with mental illness/health issues it's good to have authentic voices. They don't necessarily provide your answers, but they provide you with the feeling that someone out there also asks the same questions, feels the same gnawing fear, and is trying to understand what has yet to be understood: the human mind. I highly recommend this though initially it is rather a dry reading, I ended up liking being able to focus on something, like the authors questions, not the pain and trauma only.
Helpful Score: 1
The author details his daughter's mental illlness. A very sobering look at the roots and treatment of psychosis, as well as it's total unpredictability.
Helpful Score: 1
I very much enjoyed reading this book.
Helpful Score: 1
This was a very interesting book about the author's daughter, Sally.. This book was engrossing and I read it in the matter of hours. Sally shows classic symptoms of bipolar disease, even though at a younger age than most, and the story develops through the diagnosis and treatment. The author goes through a journey of redeveloping all of the relationship and connections with people in his life because of the defenselessness he felt while his only daughter "was struck mad".
The author does a good job developing characters in the book and describing relationships between him and his ex-wife, current wife, brother and his daughter. There are also side stories of other psyche patients that are very interesting. The nurse in me was eager to read more about the symptoms, treatment, treatment facility and other patients, however this book was not so much about bipolar disorder but about how his daughter's diagnosis has affected everyone around her and how people are affected by the mental illnesses of loved ones around them.
I recommend this book to people who are interested in mental illness, bipolar disorder or for a powerful, self-reflecting memoir.
The author does a good job developing characters in the book and describing relationships between him and his ex-wife, current wife, brother and his daughter. There are also side stories of other psyche patients that are very interesting. The nurse in me was eager to read more about the symptoms, treatment, treatment facility and other patients, however this book was not so much about bipolar disorder but about how his daughter's diagnosis has affected everyone around her and how people are affected by the mental illnesses of loved ones around them.
I recommend this book to people who are interested in mental illness, bipolar disorder or for a powerful, self-reflecting memoir.
Helpful Score: 1
This book was a disappointment - dry writing. I didn't even finish it.
This was an interesting book about how mental illness affects a family. I liked how Sally's parents struggled to understand what's happening.
The tense pace of this book matches the tension Greenberg experienced as he watched his daughter during this summer. The book is one of the best written books I have read - there are certain passages where you just pause and are moved by how a sentence is written. As a former resident of Youngstown, Ohio, I also laughed out loud when I read the part about his son describing Youngstown as "people wandering the streets day and night, in a hell of idleness. Like on the psych ward..." (88) because it is very accurate! This is a poignant look at mental illness and a family's struggle to accept it.
