Very much wanted to like this book, as I adore the concept and appreciate what the author has gone through as well as her success as a writer and human. But the writing felt clunky. The essay structure was repetitive, going from diagnosis land to delving into illness related calamities and back. I wanted to be surprised, taken in different directions, and experience her world from another angle perhaps. ( )

It was remarkable to read this highly intelligent scientist's account of what she terms her condition, but it reads more like a list of symptoms than any kind of cohesive work of literature. The characters that move in and out of her life, even the obscure 'C', her husband, don't carry any emotional weight. While we sense that her mother has instilled her with fortitude, she is represented by a very few brief scenes and quotations. Her father is even more invisible. Almost all we know about him is that he was untruthful about his whereabouts on the night he brought her away from Yale. We don't even find out why he felt he should lie.

Doctors and diagnoses come and go, including sexual abuse and trauma by a past criminal boyfriend. But again, there's an emotional disconnect about his late introduction to the book. He was, apparently, the one who ended their relationship.

Suggestions about her condition and its possible causes, in terms that only real scientists might really understand, don't lead to a resolution. A lot ails her, but we never find out exactly what it was, only that it got better after she started lighting candles and using Tarot cards. I just wish she would have got better earlier than the last paragraph. ( )

Illuminating and regularly terrifying the insight into the ways in which diagnosis and treatment and then back again impact the individual and the diagnosis itself I think this book has changed me and the way I view myself and my own mental health journey. If you're non religious/spiritual as I am I would skip the last essay. ( )

I've only known one person with schizophrenia, (an acquaintance, and it was years ago) so I didn't quite have a way to tie what I was reading to an experience in my real life. For that reason, this book didn't resonate with me as much as I was hoping. I did particularly like the chapter where she discusses her late-stage Lyme disease diagnosis as I also have Lyme.

It was an interesting read overall, though, and I did learn a few things. I would recommend it to those who have been diagnosed with one of the schizophrenias or know someone who has. ( )

This reminds me that I should really read more books of essays! I really enjoyed this collection and it expanded my understanding of what a life living with schizoaffective disorder can feel like. Wang seamlessly references medical research, pop culture, and spiritual and religious beliefs to create a series of portraits of her life with mental illness. ( )