Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The novel “Brain on Fire; My Month of Madness” explains the tragic and true story of author Susannah Cahalan and her time of insanity. Susannah Cahalan a New York Post journalist tells her story on what it was like to go insane and how she and her family around her conquered her illness.
There were many things I liked in the book. To begin, I am not usually a huge fan of non-fiction books. I really enjoyed the fact that this book was not like most non-fiction books in the sense that it did not just state facts, it told a story. I also found this book to be very interesting because you were able to look into the life of a mentally insane person, something I have actually been curious about in the past. In addition, this book taught me a lot about the human brain. I have never been extremely interested in medical things, except for the occasional Grey’s Anatomy. But, this book actually made me more interested in learning about the human brain as well as just making me more knowledgeable on the topic.
Lastly, this book was a quick and easy read. Only containing 250 pages, it is a great read for when you don’t want to consume too much of your time. Though there were many things I enjoyed there were also some negatives to the book. First off, at times the book seemed to drag on. There was a lot of repetition in this book, so at times I was bored or needed to take a break. Also, even though I found it very interesting, the overall outcome of her disease (what you find out was the problem) was a bit of a let down. There was too much build up in my opinion.
Overall, the positives outweighed the negatives. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is in their teens and/or adult years. In the end, “Brain on Fire; My Month of Madness by Susannah Callahan” is a great read for any type of reader.~Student: Sara F.
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