Post # 6: Book 3 Listicle

The memoir Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan exposed me more to the psychological side of the world and to things I never think much about. It's very interesting to be able to constantly remind myself as I'm reading that this actually happened to someone and they actually went through something this insane.
Susannah goes through a journey of her medical mystery as she slowly deteriorates into herself and time is running out on finding the problem inside of her. Its almost inspiring to where of course I wouldn't want to go through this, but the fact that she opened up about her story and decided to write about it for the world to know her story of psychosis.
1- She has pulled me in from the psychology aspect
After she is diagnosed in the book with something else new, she then explains what it is and how its effecting her. Me being interested in psychology and having knowledge of these aspects helps me better understand what is occurring. For example on some pages she has diagrams of the brain labeled with what they are and what parts are being effected.

2- Happy ending but dangerously scary book overall
Of course the ending is what we all wanted after reading over 200 pages of how her life changed so drastically over just a couple of weeks, but you almost wouldn't expect it after how long on she struggles with this deadly situation.

3- Personal writer, doesn't mind other people knowing her business
Susannah Cahalan writes about her month of madness making her "Stunningly brave..." said by NPR. Writing about something this severe and to heart takes a lot of effort to let people know the real story behind something this insane. In the book when she first starts telling about her episode she would have at work, home, etc., my first thought was that she was going psycho, there is no way of her ever going back to normal. I didn't think as in depth as this book takes me.

4- Inspiring and relatable to people who have been in her situation
The audience for this book has to be interested in some kind of relation to the medical and faithful sides of this story. The way her family and she handled things throughout this whole ordeal was amazing. Never giving up, constant support and always hoping for the best with their prayers was all they needed to get through.

5- Conscious and Unconscious
When Susannah was in the hospital she would write her conscious mind and what she was thinking, but then after her seizures it would have a few paragraphs about what she could possibly hear and see while being almost unconscious. This view was interesting, its crazy how she can go through all of that and still remember and seeing conversations after major seizures. 

Truth in Memoir: Blog #5

I think when a book genre comes to non-fiction all personal situations should be 100% true. Even if some parts of your experience that you're sharing aren't the most exciting you still need to tell the full truth because in the end it would be better to have a couple boring pages that readers can skim over rather than your book becoming published and popular once you ended up lying in parts, you're then living with the anxiety of people discovering a twisted lie. The little details that you add to a story to make it more interesting do add up; for example Laila Lalami supported this claim: well maybe if I add just a little tweak here and there no one will notice the difference... Writers will write a novel and then spontaneously decide to turn them from fiction to non-fiction just to make things more appealing. In the end though its very noticeable when a story is over exaggerated. When it comes to me, I'm on the fence about a half truth story being okay and not being okay. If the story is good and I'm interested I honestly wouldn't want to know its all a lie, let me enjoy it while I can. But, at the same time I want the whole truth because if its an awesome story and is inspiring to me, knowing in the end or even if I'm only half way through the book that its all a lie I'm crushed especially if I was motivated or inspired by the story. I think that David Shields is right, we do need lines between non-fiction and fiction especially, I have a bad feeling that if there wasn't a line between them we wouldn't know what to believe and what not to believe in an authors writing. I like being able to relate to a story but I would never again be able to do that not knowing if I'm reading the truth.