Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness

English language

Published May 7, 2012

ISBN:
978-1-4516-2137-2
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4 stars (13 reviews)

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness is a 2012 New York Times best-selling autobiography by New York Post writer Susannah Cahalan. The book details Cahalan's struggle with a rare form of encephalitis and her recovery. It was first published on November 13, 2012, through Free Press in hardback, and was later reprinted in paperback by Simon & Schuster after the two companies merged.

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Review of 'Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Excellent first hand account of a brain infection that presents as mental illness. It's truly revealing how much stigma we put on mental illness and neurological problems when seen through the lens of the root issue being a "real" illness like encephalitis. The diagnostic tools most doctors use are inadequate, being subjective behavioral measures.

I've concluded from this book and other books on medicine and medical practice that we need to update medical practices to be data driven, starting with performing high resolution, full-body imaging every year. Any areas of inflammation, any odd tumors or large changes from previous scans demands immediate attention, and eliminate so much guesswork that plagues patients know, who know something is wrong, but encounter only doctors convinced they drink too much or are "crazy."

Review of 'Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

30 pages from being done and I've been pretty bored the whole way through. I bought this book about 2 years ago because I thought that the premise was really interesting: a girl contracts a mysterious disease that leaves her literally mad for an entire month and no one has any clue why? Sign me up.

Now that I've actually taken the time to read it, I'm a little disappointed by the writing itself.

For one, I understand that having your brain taken over by a crippling and lethal autoimmune disease is a dramatic event that can occur in one's life. That being said - and I think a previous reviewer mentioned this - there was a LOT more telling and I would have rather seen more showing to help me draw my own conclusions. I really dislike when authors feel the need to draw the reader an obnoxiously detailed …

Review of 'Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

So I started writing the long involved and somewhat angry review, which I have now deleted. It turns out that this book hits on 2 of my "issues." The first is what I call the cult of assertion.

No one wants to go to a doctor and be told "I don't know" and no one wants to read a newspaper article in which "Something happened but it's not clear." As a result doctors and journalists are continually asserting things when they should probably (as my handle suggests) stfu. Even Doctor "Bugsy" Siegel, seems angry (for reasons that are never explained) when he is off the case, but it's probably that he doesn't want to admit defeat. He has to assert his departure aggressively.

The second issue is that of matter over mind. The physical is real and the mental is but a result of physicality. To discover what is wrong …

Review of 'Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

I normally don't go in for "true drama" stories, but I purchased this because it was a daily deal and sounded intriguing. Since that's not my genre of choice, I'm glad I got it on sale, but if you DO generally like that genre, this is a good listen. It's well written, it moves quickly, and it is easy to sympathize with the protagonist. It's almost like a feeling of claustrophobia, imagining what it would be like to realize you're going crazy but not knowing why. I found it interesting enough that I googled both the author and the disease after finishing the book to learn more.