Left Neglected

Sarah Nickerson has it all. An MBA from Harvard Business School. A great job, a great husband who has a great job, three great kids. She and her husband have a beautiful big house in a suburb of Boston, and a vacation house in Vermont. She works eighty hours a week, but is occasionally able to

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squeeze in attendance at t-ball and soccer games. If she feels overwhelmed from time to time, she shuts her office door and allows herself to cry for five minutes. Maybe Sarah and Bob are overbooked and overextended, with two mortgages and two student loans and very little time for themselves (and each other), but isn't that the price you pay for having it all?

Rushing to work after dropping the kids at school one morning, running late on a day packed with important meetings and conference calls and trying to make up for lost time by answering e-mails and texts as she drives, Sarah loses control of her car. When she comes to she's in the hospital, half her head shaved, and about to discover that she has suffered a traumatic brain injury that's left her with a disorder known as Left Neglect. Unable to perceive the left half of the world, Sarah has to reinvent herself, both physically--learning to look left again, painstakingly developing coping techniques and ways to get around--and as a person. No longer the most capable person in the room, Sarah has to learn to depend on others to help her make her way in the world.

While Sarah's still in the hospital rehabilitation unit, her mother, who checked out of Sarah's life after her younger brother died in an accident when Sarah was still a child, checks back in. Resentful at having to depend on the mother who was incapable of ushering her from childhood through adolescence and on into adulthood, Sarah balks. Undaunted, her mother stays, helping Bob keep it together, taking care of the household, ferrying the kids back and forth to school and activities, and ultimately taking over Sarah's rehabilitation.

There is a tearful, late-in-the-game reconciliation.

Synopsized thusly, Left Neglected, the second novel by Lisa Genova, who holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard University, sounds suspiciously like a movie of the week. And it often veers unnervingly close to being a typical melodrama about redemption through overcoming a handicap. But Genova's unflinching eye and the deft first person narration (laced liberally throughout with self-deprecating humor) saves the novel from this fate. Left Neglected is certainly ripe for the book club circuit, packed as it is with mother-daughter issues, questions about when just enough becomes too much, and--of course--the delicious theme of adversity overcome. And yes, this reader did, indeed, cry with satisfaction at the end. But don't let these things deter you, as Left Neglected is so much more. It is nicely written and thought provoking. Lisa Genova obviously knows her neurological disorders, and her insight into this condition (which, a note at the end, tells us is also known as unilateral neglect or hemispatial neglect) is absolutely fascinating, and not a little chilling.

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I’ve never before heard of “left neglect” even though I am a nurse. I learned that it is one of many complications that may befall a person with right brain injury. In this novel, Sarah Nickerson end up with left neglect as a result of brain injury during the course of her busy life as wife,

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mother of three, and career woman. I’m fascinated by how well Genova can bring ailing characters to life as well as her detailed and realistic her descriptions of living with debility. I mention this since I’ve also read Still Alice, Genova’s novel about living with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Genova holds a PhD from Harvard in Neuroscience, hence she has the perfect agenda for using fiction to facilitate better understanding of neurological disorders.

One of the most devastating consequences of sudden, severe non-fatal injury is the fear of what will happen in the future. Will recovery happen? Will it be quick? Will it be complete? How will an individual’s life be changed? I liked this book most of all because it walks the reader through one situation which deals with all of those questions. It is neither optimistically rosy nor gloomily bleak. It does, however, give a picture of how one individual with this condition moves forward with her life.

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Barnes and Noble are return Nazis. When I tried to return a Christmas gift for store credit (no receipt - it was a gift), the clerk was quite nasty about it. So I conceived an evil scheme: I would buy a book I was only mildly interested in (Lisa Genova's Left Neglected), read it, and then return

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it. Take that, B & N!

A problem arose.

Lisa Genova's book is...really good. Fascinating, actually. Sarah, the hard-driving, consulting-firm executive and mother of three, wins the daily gamble with her husband and gets to drive to work without dropping the kids at daycare. Her mind spinning with her endless to-do list, she allows her attention to stray for a vital instant, and suffers a horrific accident, including a traumatic brain injury. When she awakens, she finds she has lost all awareness of anything on her left - Left Neglect.

This could have been a recipe for a somber, bitter novel, or perhaps an unrealistically inspirational one, but it is neither. Sarah, her husband Bob, Sarah's formerly neglectful, now eager-to-make-amends mother, are all fully-formed characters who are also immensely likable. (Thank you for that, Lisa Genova! I detest spending time with ugly people, even if they are well-drawn.) The decidedly peculiar problems faced by those suffering from this unusual condition are - well, they were just so interesting. At one point, Sarah's husband is urging her to "look left" and she asks him to describe the room to her, which he does. Then she asks him, "Okay, now what if I told you that everything your see is only half of everything that's really here? What if I told you to turn your head and look at the other half? Where would you look?"

Ouch. But also, really well done, Lisa Genova! I really GOT that. Left Neglected is fast-moving, intellectually engaging, emotionally powerful, and really got me thinking about my own tendency to think there is only "one best way" to navigate the world. So I guess I'll have to revenge myself on B & N some other way.

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Are you looking for a book worthy of spending your Christmas gift card on? I've got one for you.

Lisa Genova had a New York Times bestseller with her first novel Still Alice. I know she's got another bestseller on her hands with her latest book Left Neglected - releasing Jan 4/11.

Sarah Nickerson

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has it all and can do it all. Can't she? High powered job - minimum of 80 hours a week, gorgeous house in a sought after neighbourhood, vacation home in Vermont, 3 children and a devoted husband. The one thing she doesn't seem to have though, is enough time.

She can't make it to every soccer game and is sure that the other parents think that "Mothers who miss the games, like me, are bad mothers." "I love my children and know they're important, but so is my career and the life that career affords us." And her love life...well..."It's our typical morning good-bye kiss. A quick peck. A well-intentioned habit....It's a routine kiss, but I'm glad we do it. It does mean something. It's enough. And it's all we have time for."

You get the picture. It is while trying to multitask - driving while talking on the cell phone - that Sarah's world is turned upside down. She gets into a horrific crash - one that leaves her with a traumatic brain injury. She is unaware of the left side of anything, including herself. And yes, the condition is real.

Unable to work, dependent on others and forced to accept that her life will never be quite the same, Sarah must reexamine her life, her priorities and her relationships - the things in her life that have been 'left neglected.' I found the rekindling of the relationship with her mother especially poignant.

Although the subject matter is serious, Genova handles it with candor and humour. Sarah's voice is so appealing and honest. Genova has a degree in Biopsychology and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Harvard - her descriptions of a patient coping with brain injury are both accurate and informative.

But Left Neglected is simply a really, really good read. Genova's prose flow so easily, the story is addictive and I became invested in Sarah's journey. And maybe take some time to reevaluate your own priorities.

"What else is there? Maybe success can be something else, and maybe there's another way to get there."

Eminently gift card worthy. I think this is going to be one of 2011's best sellers too. Five stars for me.

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Sarah Nickerson is a type-A mother-of-three who is living the expensive, busy life of Big Business in Boston. Although Sarah always talks on the phone while driving, THIS time she has a terrible accident and ends up with a brain injury. With Left Neglect, Sarah is unaware of the left sides of

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everything (including herself). With this new disability, she must pick up the pieces of her shattered life-in the process she reconnects with her family. This book was fantastic in a variety of ways. It describes a fascinating neurological condition (Left Neglect) while enveloping the reader in a bittersweet story about family, identity, and disability. Definitely worth reading!

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BOOK DESCRIPTION

Sarah Nickerson is an upwardly mobile mother of three who works 80-hours a week at a high-powered job for a consulting firm near Boston. When we meet her, we quickly realize that Sarah’s life is overly scheduled, with little time for relaxation, her children or personal time.

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She’s the type of mom who shows up at a soccer game once a season and spends the entire game trying to find cell phone coverage to conduct a conference call for work. Then a car accident leaves her with a traumatic brain injury and a condition known as Left Neglect, which means she is unaware of anything on her left, including her own body. The accident puts the brakes on her non-stop lifestyle … even bringing her long estranged mother back into her life. As Sarah struggles to learn to cope with Left Neglect, her life begins to change drastically, but perhaps in a way that is better for her and her family.

MY THOUGHTS

Neuroscientist Genova’s first book, Still Alice, dealt with another neurological condition, Alzheimer’s disease. It was artfully down and affected me emotionally. (I think I was sobbing through the entire last third of the book.) Genova has a gift for writing about neurological conditions and helping the reader to experience these conditions by writing from a patient’s point of view. Although she manages to clearly and thoroughly explain the challenges facing people with Left Neglect, the book just doesn’t pack the same emotional punch as Still Alice. Although Left Neglect is a fascinating condition, it just isn’t as heart-breaking as Alzheimer’s.

Another reason I felt less involved with this story is because the Sarah we first meet in this book is somewhat unlikable. Her life seems ridiculously busy and structured, and I found myself wondering why she even bothered to have children in the first place. They seemed like something to be managed rather than loved. Her focus on her career and doing everything and doing it perfectly seemed shallow and empty. I didn’t really like her all that much. I see why Genova may have made Sarah this way (so she can experience an epiphany as she is forced to slow down due to the accident), but it felt too manufactured to feel authentic. Plus I just didn’t think the ending that Genova gave Sarah and her family was realistic. It felt too convenient and tidy. I think that perhaps Genova’s background as a neuroscientist is her strength and her novel-writing skills haven’t caught up. She is brilliant at explaining the medical stuff but her story idea felt too much like a connect the dots plot.

Still, the book isn’t bad, and the condition of Left Neglect was interesting to learn about. It boggles my mind that someone could experience this. Although the plot felt a bit wooden and unbelievable, Genova does a brilliant job of explaining what must be a frustrating and confusing condition.

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Ever since I read Lisa Genova's saga of an Alzheimer's victim, "Still Alice", I've been anxious to get to this one. Although written as fiction, the story of this more common than we realize neurological condition known as "Left Neglect" is compelling, frightening, encouraging, discouraging,

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depressing, and uplifting all at once.

The main character, Sara Nickerson, is portrayed as an over-achieving, multi-tasking, high powered executive, mother of three who thinks she can have it all--and almost does, until a momentary lapse of judgement (trying to dial a cell-phone while barreling along a crowded turnpike at 70mph) results in a horrific accident, and a traumatic brain injury. When she awakes in the hospital, she is confronted with the fact that the entire left side of her experience is missing. She can't see on her left, she can't use her left arm or leg, she can't hear on her left--in essence, she is missing half her reality. She can't dress, bath or toilet herself, she can't read, she can't use a computer, she can't walk, she can't feed herself, and the outlook is less than optimistic for a full recovery.

For about 60% of this book, I wanted to smack this woman. She is obnoxious, arrogant, demanding, selfish, and totally unlikable. But..............she is suffering an incredible challenge, and an almost impossible obstacle course to recover her previous life, so I continued reading, praying for a change of heart. On top of the physical issues she had to deal with, she is confronted with having her mother moving in to her household to help out with day to day chores, with her daughter's physical needs (dressing, bathing, moving etc) and with childcare - particularly for the toddler. Apparently, Sara has not been on speaking terms with her mother for most of her adult life, and the psychic energy she must expend on re-building (or tearing down) that relationship is an additional trauma to her system. On top of everything, the family has to face a precipitous drop in its very affluent life-style if Sara is unable to return to work.

Genova has given us a powerful portrayal of the physical, mental, psychological and spiritual challenges of this type of injury --not just to the victim, but to the family and friends who also are impacted by its devastation. In the end, it is a story of the power of the human spirit to rise above adversity and get on with life. It is a story that will stick with the reader for years.

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What is really important in life? This story examines that question through the eyes of a career driven woman suddenly laid low by a car accident. Sarah was a constantly on the go businesswoman whose pace of life was so fast it is no surprise that she is often on the phone while she is driving--a

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near fatal error that leads to an accident and to a brain injury. The brain injury leaves Sarah with a condition called "Left Neglect"--her brain no longer realizes that there is a "left", so things on the left side of her vision disappear, and she also has no control over the left side of her body. Still, Sarah is elated to be alive, and she plunges into therapy, thinking that since she has never failed at anything she will be back at work in no time. Except she isn't. And when she does return home she needs lots of help--which is when her mother, whom she has hardly spoken to in years, reenters her life. As Sarah works through her recovery, she finds that taking things at a slower pace and actually spending time with her mother, husband and children make her notice things that she never slowed down to take note of before. Sarah changes--but does her family change with her?
I highly recommend this, especially if you like books that explore medical issues and/or family issues. I found it engrossing and the characters felt very real to me.

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Someone I know had a stroke and developed Left Neglect. She knew what it was because she had read this book, so I decided to read it too.

When I began this book I didn't like Sarah. I thought she was a snooty person who cared nothing for actual people. It was all about work and success. Yes she

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loved her children, but were they just an extension of her ego? Her desire to be a perfect parent as well as a perfect professional? Where was my compassion? The compassion reserved for all beings, likable or not? OK, this is fiction. I'm allowed not to like someone who doesn't really exist.

Of course once she had the accident and became disabled, I felt differently. The novel unfolds and acquires more depth as Sarah discovers her limitations and struggles with fighting them vs. accepting them and moving on to have the life she desires and deserves. The effect of her increased awareness influences the lives of her children, her husband and her mother, long alienated from her by a childhood tragedy. Lisa Genova also describes Left Neglect in a way that you can really understand it. It isn't paralysis. It is lack of awareness of the left. A fascinating look into how the brain's awareness of left is coupled to the ability to see left and to move left.

Altogether a rewarding and enriching reading experience.

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Sarah, an executive, wife and mother of three, is on the executive treadmill when she is in a car accident. Suffering from a traumatic brain injury, she is discovered to be suffering LEFT NEGLECT. Her body does not register the left side of her body. Her rehabilitation is painstakingly slow. She

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reevaluates her relationships, her life and her well being and discovers what is really important.

As in. I SIDE THE O'BRIENS, the author has taken an. Usual medical condition and researched it thoroughly, explaining and describing it to the reader through a fictionalized account of a person's experience with it.

Great writing and touching story.

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The narrator suffers a traumatic brain injury in a car accident. She is diagnosed with "left neglect" a lack of awareness of everything to her left, including the left side of her body. The author is a neuroscientist and does a marvelous job of describing the condition from Sarah's point of view.

After a horrific car accident, successful business woman and mother, Sarah Nickerson, suffers a brain injury known as Left Neglect where the patient's brain is unable to acknowledge or recognise the left-side of anything. Suddenly Sarah finds herself helpless, unable to feel the left-side of her

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body, read the left-side of a page or see anything on the left-side of the room. Fiercely independent before the accident, Sarah suddenly finds herself relying on others to do the most basic of tasks for her.

I had never heard of Left Neglect before reading this book and I found Sarah to have a believable voice. I shared her fears, frustrations, small successes and fighting spirit. I can only imagine her heart-ache when she first realised everything she had lost and how terrifying that must have been. Gradually, however, Sarah learns to cope with her limitations and comes to appreciate what is really important in life.

Sarah's mother is another great character. With her own fears and insecurities she steps in to become Sarah's personal nurse - dressing her, helping with Sarah's physio therapy, looking after the children and taking care of the general running of a busy household.

My only negative would be that the build-up to the accident was a bit too long and the end came quickly, otherwise it was a fascinating read. I am becoming a real Genova fan. Can't wait for her next book.

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"Everything on the highway is still. Everything but me. I'm going 70 mph"

Sarah is what has become known as a super-mum: high-flying career woman working a standard 80 hour week, mother to 3, with an equally hard-working husband. She tries to get home for dinner with the kids every night but never

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makes it to her son's football games. One day, driving to work, she looks at her mobile phone rather than the road, and is a victim of the predictably ensuing road accident. Waking up in hospital, she is fortunate not to have many broken bones, but her brain has been permanently changed - she has Left Neglect, a condition in which her brain fills in the left side of everything as if there is a blind spot there, meaning she can't see anything unusual on her left. Nor can she properly control her left hand or left leg.

I'm still not sure about this fictional exploration of brain damage - in a sense, this reads like a survivor's memoir, and knowing that it is fictional leaves one with a sense of deception. On the other hand, using fiction gives Genova the opportunity to condemn the 200%-lifestyle that leads Sarah to the accident, and to have her experience a re-evaluation of life and recognise the need to downsize.

All of the characters are entirely realistic - just reading about Sarah's job made me nervous as I thought about 60 emails coming in overnight (I usually only have 5!); her husband is wonderfully supportive but the conflict of a potential job loss, and Sarah's eventual challenge of him working so hard when the office is closed provides some much needed darkness to a very warm character. The kids are difficult, and the sub-plot about Charlie's schooling was a very interesting one - to have Charlie and Sarah doing their homework together was touching. As for Sarah's mother, who is a real piece of work...

The writing was a little disappointing - judging from Jodi Picoult's rave quote on the front cover, I expected it to be similar to Picoult but I found the standard to be a little lower, and just below my snob threshold. I appreciated the single voice for the duration, rather than the recent fashion for switching narrator perspectives, but the incessant and unvaried present tense was a bit much for me.

I'll be looking out for Genova's first book, Still Alice, and would recommend this as reading to anyone interested in brain injury. Just don't expect high literature.

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The cover blurb of this book was written by Jodi Picoult and the characters and plotline were very Picoult-esque. Our main character surivies a car accident that leaves her with a neurological condition commonly known as "left neglect" in which the brain is not aware of the left side of the body or

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the left side of the visual field. Throughout 75% of the story we see how she deals with it and how it affects her life. I applaud the author for not giving Sarah a sudden miraculous recovery. That would have been just too easy and too unrealistic a way to wrap up the plot. Instead Sarah and her husband Bob decide to leave the fast-lane of their surburban Boston life and move to their second home (cause we all have one, right? Geez!) in Vermont which in turn helps their family in other unexpected ways. Fast read.

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I was very impressed with Genova's debut novel Still Alice, a story focused on the main character's decent into Alzheimer's, and have been waiting impatiently for her second book to come out. Left Neglected was well worth the wait.

Sarah Nickerson is a thirty-something high powered career woman,

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mother of three and wife to an equally upwardly mobile husband. 80-hour work weeks and constant multitasking are what Sarah's life is all about - everything driven by a mental scorecard, tracking and capitalizing on every minute as if her life, and her family's lives, are managed by an air traffic controller. I am not an obsessive A-type personality so Sarah's idea of life isn't one I share with her. One fateful day, Sarah's high powered, and dare I say frantic life, takes a drastic turn when she attempts to make a phone call while driving to work and crashes her vehicle in the process. due to the crash, she suffers a traumatic brain injury to the right hemisphere of the brain. The outcome of this brain injury is a neurological syndrome known as Left Neglect, with Sarah's brain ignoring information on the left side of the world, including the left side of her own body.

This is where the story shifts from good fiction to fascinating fiction for me. Genova, a PhD in neuroscience, has an amazing skill at conveying neurological disabilities/dysfunctions from a patient's point of view while still presenting an interesting story that is easy for the reader to connect with. As a left handed individual with a fascination with how the human brain is 'wired', this story was a great page-turner for me. Imagine having to force yourself, though conscious effort, to look left, because as far as your brain is concerned, there is no left. Left hand, what left hand? Same goes for the your left leg. Oh, and for the food lovers out there, you think you have eaten everything on your dinner plate only to have the plate turned clockwise 180 degrees and, low and behold, the other half of your dinner magically appears!

Candid, informative and at times humorous, Sarah's experiences after this life altering experience with all its ups and downs has left me appreciating how difficult living with Left Neglect can be and has left me wanting to learn more about this fascinating neurological syndrome.

A fascinating and insightful story about a neurological syndrome that is for the most part is still not well understood by the scientific community and about making important, life altering choices and connections. Highly recommended!

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A workaholic business woman/mother gets in a car accident while on her cell phone and suffers injury to her brain. During her long recovery as she suffers from "left neglect" where she can't see of feel things on her left, her life undergoes major changes. While this didn't have the WOW impact that

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Genova's first novel Still Alice had, it was a good read.

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I enjoyed this fast read. The reader could identify with Sarah and her difficulty adjusting to life with a brain injury. I think Sarah's desire to regain her old life and eventual openness to acceptable concessions was well-done and very realistic to the character.

I felt the book took a little time

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to get going. The first few chapters introduce us to the characters and Sarah's type-A lifestyle. I think this could have been accomplished in fewer chapters. I kept waiting for the accident to happen already.

The ending was a bit pretty and perfect to be wholly realistic.

I did not enjoy the dreams that opened the beginning chapters and that closed the book. The dreams were too perfectly symbolic and prescient - unrealistic compared to any dream that I have ever experienced.

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This neurological-impairment based book is a bit like the movie "Regarding Henry" in its depiction of a typical hard-driving Type A personality struck down with a life-changing physical impairment. Forced to cope with reduced capabilities, the heroine reexamines her life and comes out the other end

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changed, but somehow better. The medicine and science is impecable, the story too predictable, but engaging nonetheless.

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From my blog

Sarah is my favourite character this year so far. She is strong, has the perfect charmed balanced life as a working mom, she has a great sense of humour and is passionate. All the characteristics that I love in a best friend, I wanted to be her best friend in this book. Such an

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emotional crisis but instead of it pulling at me emotionally and having the Kleenex I was smiling, Sarah's sarcasm was delightful.

The first half of the book was about Sarah's charmed life. She is VP of Human Resources for a consultancy firm, a very high powered job which she loves, has 3 young children, the youngest only 9 months, she is a wife and this is all wrapped up into a very structured 'perfect' life. Sarah loves the best of the best, my kind of girl. The cutest thing throughout the book, Sarah and her husband play scissors, rock, paper for simple decisions, very cute indeed.

I like how the author included Sarah's dreams, making you consider if this is a way of trying to give Sarah a message to slow down. All it took was searching in her purse for her cellphone and ACCIDENT that changed her life. We must stop talking, texting, messenging while driving. Sarah is lucky to not have killed anyone or herself but she does end up with Left Neglect, also knows as unilateral neglect and hemispatial neglect. Patients with Left Neglect are not blind, but rather their brains ignore information on the left side of the world, often including the left side of their own bodies. (Taken from authors note)

Lisa G continues to make the reader try to understand what Sarah is going through and I love how Sarah's inner self gives her encouragement, tells her off etc. Here is an example. Hey there, Sarah, you think you're seeing your whole face, but you're actually only paying attention to the right side.. There's another half there. It's called the left. Honest to God. There are many times in the book the author makes you reflect on your own life, I dare you to try and read this and not consider making changes.

The second half of the book is Sarah's recovery, decisions about going back to work and her mom is there to assist her with everything. This is a journey all on its own with some family history of hurt.

This book was fascinating to me and I felt good at the end. Lisa Genova has a PhD in neuroscience and you can tell she puts real research and passionate time into her writing to educated the reader while we are enjoying her novel.

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Plot was predictable, characters were not particularly interesting nor likable.

This is a light and enjoyable read but becomes a bit predictable and soppy towards the end.

I was disappointed in this book. It was predictable with a predictable ending wrapped up in a nice package. The medical condition - left neglect or hemispatial neglect - that is at the heart of the book is fascinating. However, the story was an old one - Woman living a high powered lifestyle

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suffers a traumatic injury. In her recover, she discovers new priorities and a new paradigm for her life. But new jobs come up at just the right time. Relationships work out at just the right time. The accident and injury is devastating. The presentation of what happens next is just too neat.

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Although LEFT NEGLECTED by Lisa Genova is fiction, it is about living with a real affliction, left neglect. Left neglect occurs after damage to the right side of the brain. The affected person is unaware of the left side of their body and the left side of everything around them. Therefore, she

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can’t process or perceive anything on the left side of her body or environment. Yet, this is not because of blindness or paralysis or even lack of sensation on the left side.

In LEFT NEGLECTED Sarah’s brain damage happens when she is on her way to work, preoccupied with locating her cell phone. Her car flipps. The next thing she knows, she’s in the hospital. She had been in a coma for about a week and would soon discover the symptoms of left neglect.

Before her accident, Sarah had been quite a busy working mother of three. Not only that, but her job as vice president of marketing was so time consuming, it was a wonder she had time for her family at all. Somehow, this superwoman did. But all that was about to change at least temporarily.

While I’ve been seeing much praise of Lisa Genova for her skillful writing about this medical condition, I give her hats off, too, for her ability to describe for pages and pages the life of a busy mom while still keeping me interested. I think you’ll enjoy, as I did, Genova’s humor as Sarah deals with each child before and after work.

Soon, though, Sarah has her car accident and is in the hospital. Now we see her begin dealing with her left neglect and with the people working on it with her. I can assure you, her descriptions are accurate. And, yet, both Sarah and the author keep their humor throughout.

When it’s time for Sarah to go home, though, will Genova be able to retain her accuracy or just keep trying to be funny? I was pleased to see that, yes, she still does both.

As I said, I can assure you that Genova is accurate in her descriptions of the feelings and thoughts of a brain injured person forced to live with this unexpected and, put lightly, inconvenient condition. Although brain injuries vary and do not all involve left neglect but some other result, the thoughts and feelings of the afflicted person and the reactions of nonafflicted people around her are common.

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In an interview about her book Still Alice, Genova mentioned that she was reading Never Say Die, a memoir about a women who had a brain hemorrhage. Of course I had to read that immediately so I was quite surprised to see the many similarities in the first several chapters in both books. Both women

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struggled through emotional and physical details of trying to manage with the loss of a portion of their brain in control of a major part of their respective bodies. Yes, the stories pull in different circumstances but for a while I was almost wondering if I was just rereading a book I had just finished! Of course the lives go in different directions but the two women one in the novel and one in a memoir would recognize each other and have a lot to share with each other.

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