Poison Words
I'm Lauren. I'm a book reviewer. I have several other accounts, including a Pulseit, two tumblrs, and a Goodreads.
Book Review for Brainstorm
I recorded my thoughts throughout the entire book, writing down what I thought at certain passages.
Page 8: So far I do not like the main character. I feel as if everything that comes out of his mouth is something about sex, and he's a very big pervert.
Page 16: "Rachel went from a hundred pounds to eighty seven." That fact that she started at a hundred pounds is concerning. That would be underweight for anyone except someone who's 4'9 and eleven years old.
Page 26: "You think a story has a beginning and an end, but it doesn't. How can we live happily ever after know we die at the end?"
Page 40: "I can't do this alone." I'm sorry, but your wife is the one with the cerebral hemorrhage...You can't just start crying and say that when your wife is the one who's fatally sick. It doesn't work like that, buddy.
Page 63: Though the story has improved, there are still parts where the narrator says, “I’m scared, or “I can’t do this alone,” and I don’t really think that’s fair. His wife is the one with extreme medical issues. I think he’d be better to spend his energy trying to talk to her about their options rather than freak her out or something.
Page 100: Just when I was starting to like the main character, he goes and urinates in a toilet display in a home improvement store. You seriously couldn’t have looked for a bathroom? Really?
Page 147: I’ve grown to feel kind of emotionless towards the characters. I sympathize with what’s happening to them, but I don’t feel any sort of connection to them. It’s very easy for me to feel an emotional bond with characters in books, but with this novel, I just didn’t feel a connection. There’s still a bit left, though, so I’ll see how I feel after that. Though I will admit, I do not like how the hospital staff treats the patients. It seems unfair for them to hide so much and give them the worst case scenarios at all times.
Okay, enough about what I thought while reading the book. These are my final thoughts, which I’m going to graciously share.
Though I had some trouble liking the main character, I thought this boko was brilliant. I did end up really liking Rachel in the end, because I feel as if she was very witty. The humor in this book was great, though very dry. It shows the pain and emotions better than a lot of books do.
It took me a while to get through, but I’m really glad I read it all. When I finished the book, I kind of sat back for a little bit like, “it’s over? Man, what am I gonna do now…?” It was one of those books. It was great, and the more I read, the more it captured my emotions. I really didn’t get that into the book until the last 30 pages, though when I got that far, I seemed to have grown accustomed to the characters.
Though I did not like the narrator, I did like Rachel. I did not like the doctors or the nurses or pretty much any other characters besides Rachel in the book besides the two dogs they have. I do feel as if the narrator had a lot of character developement, though.
Overall, I think it’s a great story that brought emotion together with medical drama, which ended in a grand flurry of an ending. Would I recommend it to other people? Yes, but only if you can stand disrespectful people. I cannot stand people who are rude and disrespectful, so I was constantly annoyed at nearly everyone in the book. No one seemed to care about anyone else. I think the husband was worried about his wife, who had developed a brain hemmorhage, and the hospital staff did not respect any of their wishes or grant them any privacy.
Though I was very critical of this book, I would give it 3.5 out of 5 stars. It was a beautiful story.
You can buy this book on Amazon : http://www.amazon.com/Brainstorm-Memoir-Devotion-Cerebral-Aneurysm/dp/1631580205/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Or on Sky Horse Publishing : http://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/book/?GCOI=60239106738160&fa=author&person_id=337
