Lisa Genova – Book Journey

I recommend everyone read at least one Genova, Brilliant and Insightful – Every Time. ~Sheila

At 19 years old, Maddy Banks is much like any other stressed out NYU Freshman. With school assignments, navigating relationships, home life, and her job, it’s no wonder she feels off.
But when Maddy is given an antidepressant to help her with the lows, she begins to feel good. Really, really good… so good—she feels she can do anything and is pretty sure she is on the path to writing Taylor Swift’s Memoir (with the assistance of Taylor, of course) and working with Netflix on a Comedy series.

Maddy is then diagnosed as having Bipolar Disorder.

As Maddy struggles with medications with big side effects, an overprotective mother, a caring sister, and basically learning to navigate life through the setbacks (two steps forward one mega messy launch backward, repeat…) and, of course, trying to navigate this new life with friendships/ relationships and not real comfortable sharing her diagnosis with everyone… Maddy is in for a learning curve… they all are.

When I ask people if they have ever read Lisa Genova, many times I will get a, “I’m not sure” or a “No” – then when I ask them if they ever heard of the movie Still Alice starring Julianne Moore, who plays a professor at Columbia University who begins to have memory loss of where she is on her daily jogs, and must come to terms with a devastating diagnosis: early-onset Alzheimer’s disease – I almost always get a yes, as they recall this wonderful and sad movie.
What they may not have known is that Still Alice was first a book written by Lisa Genova.

I have enjoyed several of Genova’s books throughout the years, each about a different ailment/diagnosis, woven into a wonderful storyline that is both engaging and a learning experience. I have read:
Still Alice ( Alzheimer’s)
Left Neglected (for a Reading Group) Left Negelected (for myself) – Brain Injury

Inside The O’Brien’s (Huntington Disease)

I really enjoyed this book and Maddy. She is a trainwreck for sure, but she gets there 🙂 Learning about having Bipolar disorder (not being Bipolar, as Maddy would say – you have it, it’s not you. If you eat a pizza, you are not a pizza) was eye-opening.
There were a couple of lines – well, more than that, but here are a couple that really caught my attention:

“She is in bed every night by ten, tired from having lived the day rather than tired of living the day.” – page 36

Her disposition is a cottage in the forest inhabited by pharmaceutical dwarfs. She’s sleepy, shaky, thirsty, cranky, unworthy, full-of-shitty, and meh. – page 291

Told in the usual Genova style, the book is engaging and insightful, at times funny, and while you sink into one family’s story, you become a little more knowledgeable along the way.
I love that.

I have not read everything by Lisa Genova, but on her website, I see a few titles that I have not read – Every Note Played (ALS)
– Love Anthony (Autism)
I encourage you to pick up any one of her books that speaks to you – I am quite sure you will be glad you did.

Rated: 4 out of 5
Read Author Before: Yes!
Read Author Again: Most likely!
Where Read: Started in Florida – read while we traveled back to MN by RV – finished in Georgia

Books and Beans is a book discussion I host at a local coffee shop once a month. This is our second month doing this and this mornings discussion (with a great cup of coffee) was with the book Left Neglected by Lisa Genova.

If you have not read Lisa Genova, you are certainly missing out. Lisa is the author of Still Alice (which was also a movie), and Inside The O’Briens ; both of which I have read, as well as the author of Love Anthony and the soon to be released, Every Note Played. she is one of those authors that once you have read one of her books, you will more than likely be searching for another.

Today’s discussion was good. We had a great group of women who were highly engaged in discussing the novel. Left Neglected, the story of Sarah Nickerson, a highly driven business woman who while trying to squeeze in one more phone call while driving looks away from the road a second too long and her overfilled life suddenly comes to a halt. When Sarah awakens in the hospital she finds that she has had a traumatic brain injury, one that has left her without the use of the left side of her brain referred to as left neglect. Sarah finds that her once carefully scheduled to the minute world is now one she must release to the control of others while she struggles to rehabilitate herself in a whole new world.

We touched on some pretty important topics through our discussion. One of these topics was status and what drives people to the point of feeling they need that acceptance form the outside world to feel complete, useful. One of the ladies in the room said something that stuck with me. She said,

Status, relies on other people.

I had never really thought of it like that before. The discussion continued on that this need of acceptance/approval can stem back to childhood.

Another one that stuck with me was about the loss of a child.

Losing a child changes how you view the world.

This is also something that hit me. It’s true… 100%, I just never quite put it into these words. But yes.. absolutely yes, the world becomes a different place.

We had a wonderful 2 hour discussion on this book and probably could have went longer. Left Neglected brings much to the table to talk about. If you have not read Left Neglected, I highly recommend it.