Author: Lisa Genova
Published: January 14, 2025, by Gallery/Scout Press
Format: Kindle, 368 Pages
Genre: Fiction
Source: My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.
Blurb: Maddy Banks is just like any other stressed-out freshman at NYU. Between schoolwork, exams, navigating life in the city, and a recent breakup, it’s normal to be feeling overwhelmed. It doesn’t help that she’s always felt like the odd one out in her picture-perfect Connecticut family. But Maddy’s latest low is devastatingly low, and she goes on an antidepressant. She begins to feel good, dazzling in fact, and she soon spirals high into a wild and terrifying mania that culminates in a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
As she struggles to find her way in this new reality, navigating the complex effects bipolar has on her identity, her relationships, and her life dreams, Maddy will have to figure out how to manage being both too much and not enough.
My Opinion: The book starts with a manic tone that Lisa Genova aimed to create. She wants us inside Maddy’s head. Maddy is out of control. Chapter 2 takes the reader 18 months prior so we can see what got us to where we first met Maddy in a Las Vegas hotel room. Then progress through the highs and lows with Maddy and her family. There are tidbits of what brought on the diagnosis, but as the author relates, there could be many reasons.
Genova, with her professional background, takes the reader on both a fictionalized, as well as a medical journey. What is most disheartening is that medical professionals still don’t know how to treat this disorder and they still don’t know how most of the drugs that are prescribed work since research has shown that antidepressants are no more effective than placebos in treating depression. As long as the placebo has an active component, something that will give you a headache or an upset stomach, it will trick your body into thinking it must be good for you. Yet, they continue to throw medications at those fighting for their mental health, but it appears to only be “just throwing spaghetti at the wall and calling what sticks medicine.” Medical Science is a fascinating thing.
In the author’s notes, she displays how this book can educate, humanize, demystify, destigmatize, and engender empathy. And I wholeheartedly agree since this book shines a light on a disorder with onset typically occurring in the later teen and early twenties, that affects 6 million people, slightly more than those that are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and is the sixth leading cause of disability worldwide and is the tenth leading cause of death in the US, all while hiding in plain sight.
On its own, Maddy's story is fascinating but the research and education that Lisa Genova has shared is invaluable.
As she struggles to find her way in this new reality, navigating the complex effects bipolar has on her identity, her relationships, and her life dreams, Maddy will have to figure out how to manage being both too much and not enough.
My Opinion: The book starts with a manic tone that Lisa Genova aimed to create. She wants us inside Maddy’s head. Maddy is out of control. Chapter 2 takes the reader 18 months prior so we can see what got us to where we first met Maddy in a Las Vegas hotel room. Then progress through the highs and lows with Maddy and her family. There are tidbits of what brought on the diagnosis, but as the author relates, there could be many reasons.
Genova, with her professional background, takes the reader on both a fictionalized, as well as a medical journey. What is most disheartening is that medical professionals still don’t know how to treat this disorder and they still don’t know how most of the drugs that are prescribed work since research has shown that antidepressants are no more effective than placebos in treating depression. As long as the placebo has an active component, something that will give you a headache or an upset stomach, it will trick your body into thinking it must be good for you. Yet, they continue to throw medications at those fighting for their mental health, but it appears to only be “just throwing spaghetti at the wall and calling what sticks medicine.” Medical Science is a fascinating thing.
In the author’s notes, she displays how this book can educate, humanize, demystify, destigmatize, and engender empathy. And I wholeheartedly agree since this book shines a light on a disorder with onset typically occurring in the later teen and early twenties, that affects 6 million people, slightly more than those that are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and is the sixth leading cause of disability worldwide and is the tenth leading cause of death in the US, all while hiding in plain sight.
On its own, Maddy's story is fascinating but the research and education that Lisa Genova has shared is invaluable.
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