Everything Here is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee

It took me a long time to read this novel. Not because it wasn't interesting, or well written, because it was both of those things. It was hard to read because of the subject matter. I found it to be powerful, haunting, and heartbreaking. 

Two sisters, Miranda and Lucia Bok, came to America from China with their mother after their father was killed in a car accident. Struggling to raise a young daughter and an infant (Lucia), their mother endured many tough years. Miranda and Lucia--both very smart, gifted young women. Except one day, Lucia begins to hear voices, and their lives are forever changed by mental illness. 

The story of the Bok sisters is one of love, anger, hope, anguish, and regret. Lucia's life is all over the map: she meets Yonah, marries him, and seems pretty stable for quite some time. He is the love of her life. And yet, she breaks down, and that begins the long cycle of highs and lows as she battles schizophrenia; her reluctance to take medication that will stabilize her, and her desire to live a life free from the restraints of pills. Lucia's life takes her to Ecuador, where she lives a very rural life with her partner Manny and their daughter Essy. Still yearning for Yonah (whom she leaves and divorces after an episode), she's never happy. Her relationship with Manny is always on the edge, as he struggles to keep her healthy, all the while dreaming of another woman and the life they could have had together. 

Miranda, a successful businesswoman, lives in Switzerland with her husband. She struggles so much over the years to be the strong one, and to take care of her sister. The emotional baggage between Lucia and Miranda is intense, and the guilt Miranda feels over Lucia is never ending. Their relationship is the backbone of this novel, and it's heartbreaking to read. At what point do you live your life for yourself, and stop giving it all to someone else? Culture also has a lot of impact in Miranda and Lucia's lives; so many cultures in this novel and how they see mental illness: Chinese, Ecuadorian, American, Swiss. 

This is a powerful novel about mental illness; the toll it takes on family, friends, and the person who suffers from mental illness. How to reconcile the person you knew before with the person they have become. This would make a very good book group discussion. There is a lot to this novel, and it is not something you should read quickly. Take your time with it. 

A big thank you to Penguin Books for providing a copy to review. 

Rating: 5/6 for an intense novel about two sisters and their journey through mental illness. It is a journey full of love, heartbreak, loss, grief, understanding, and acceptance. 

Available in hardcover, paperback, and ebook. 

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Everything Here is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

Brain on Fire is a pretty intense dive into Susannah Cahalan's personal trip to hell and back.  Sometimes it was hard to believe what I was reading was non-fiction and not just a really good medical thriller.  

Susannah was a healthy 24 year old, living in New York City in a tiny apartment, dating a great guy, and working as a journalist at the New York Post.  It was Spring, 2009 when Susannah started to feel a bit odd.  A bad headache, difficulty concentrating at work, and the concern of parents and friends sent her to doctors.  Diagnoses ranging from mono, to "being too stressed to live on her own", to yes, even schizophrenia kept coming.  All blood tests, MRI's, and other tests all kept coming back normal.  And Susannah's health kept deteriorating...

Needless to say, this book is about Susannah's journey into a mysterious illness that had only been discovered in 2007, two years before she somehow fell victim to it. The clock was ticking--would Susannah's doctors find a cure before it was too late?  

This all takes place over a month, and it's pretty intense. In order to write about her experience, Susannah spent time reading her father's journal, going over doctor reports and notes, and piecing together her lost month, when everyone thought she was going mad.  She doesn't remember much of it at all, just a few flashes of moments that continue to haunt her today.  This is a book about parents who did not give up on their child, and insisted on finding the cause of her illness.  It is the story of a woman who fights her way back from literally the brink of death.  It is about the journey after the illness, back to the real Susannah.  Could the real Susannah be found? 

I'm leaving out a lot on this review, because I want you to read this book.  It's a thriller, a medical mystery, and most importantly, a story of overcoming the odds, and simply being lucky and in the right place in the right time.

There are plenty of tv interviews and clips of Susannah on YouTube that you can check out if you'd like to hear her story.  

Available in paperback, audio, and e-book.

Rating:  7/10 for medical thriller that is all the more chilling because it is real.  

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Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan