Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
Published by: Simon & Schuster on November 13, 2012
Pages: 268
Source: Purchased by me
Genre: Non-fiction, Memoir, Medicine, Psychology

"When twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she’d gotten there. Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life: at the beginning of her first serious relationship and a promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was labeled violent, psychotic, a flight risk. What happened?" (Source: Goodreads description)

My Thoughts: I’ll be honest; it took me about 50 pages to really believe what was going on in this psychology memoir. My initial reaction to reading about Cahalan’s slow descent into ‘madness’ was doubt. She’s a journalist, so of course she has the ability to persuade someone into thinking what she wants you to think, but the openness of her journey is what really had me reeling. She approaches her dark experiences in an extremely researched and open way that leaves literally nothing to be imagined. As you crawl deeper into the rabbit hole that was her spiraling life, you come to realize that it’s not a story anyone would create for attention. This memoir relates real psychological and physical pain unlike anything most people will ever experience

I found this book extremely fascinating because it brought together many parts of Cahalan’s life into a bound up piece of work (of course, those pieces she has divulged, not necessarily her as a full person.. You get my point). As a journalist, she went to all of the people she was in contact with during her illness to get the point of views that others had when she was blind to reality. Having the context of her story from others makes it more accurate and ultimately polished.

Even if you aren’t interested in psychology and brain health, this is an extremely beautiful novel. It shows the strength of hope in a situation that can seem otherwise hopeless. It also shows how impossibly difficult it can be when yourself of self is lost and you have to build ‘you’ back up from rubble. Obviously, this isn’t your average memoir.

My Rating: ★★★

Review: Mort(e) by Robert Repino

Mort(e) by Robert Repino
Published: January 2015
Series: War with No Name #1

Tagline: Mort(e), an anthropomorphized house cat, treks through a world-ending war between humans and car-sized ants in order to rescue his platonic (?) best friend, a dog named Sheba.

Plot Overview (because it's pretty weird!): Let's start from the beginning. Ants have evolved in such a way that they are super-intelligent, some even growing to be larger than vehicles. At the same time, the ants have evolved most animals so they have hands instead of paws, they stand on their hind legs, and they can think and talk. Yes, ants have made animals sentient and aware. Animals change overnight, not having to slowly learn how to understand or read, but simply knowing. As one can imagine, this causes many animals to rebel against humans (specifically their 'masters') and the War with No Name rages. Meanwhile, Mort(e) fights the War with No Name only as a way to pass time until he can somehow find an orange and white dog he knew from before he was aware. Her name is Sheba and she means the world to Mort(e).

My review: This book is AMAZING. Repino creates these extremely original characters that grow over time and create lasting relationships with each other and the reader. I found it particularly interesting to find out some of the dark pasts of the characters introduced. They are presented as stories of slaves being freed from masters, because in reality all of the pets that become sentient realize that they have been enslaved within their homes and made to live their lives a certain way.

I found that a lot of times, you can take yourself out of this book being about cats standing on their back legs and talking to ants with weird headsets. It's strange, yes, but Repino makes the animals very humanoid because they are supposed to take the place of humans on Earth, so they adjust to speaking, standing, living in 'normal' ways.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in a different sort of war book. It's violent at times, also reminding me of an apocalyptic novel. The animals that survive the humans must make do with the remnants of their humans' abodes, scrounging for food when their predecessors were omnivores and some animals are obligate carnivores. This novel was an extremely original take on a revolution that may never come to pass, but I would definitely consider it for an alternate history.

Rating: 5/5 stars

#30DayBookBinge - kicking it off.. again!

(click here for my 2 1/2 week vlog update)

For the last 17 days, I 've been 'participating' (I use the term loosely because I'm currently in a slump) in the #30DayBookBinge created by Book Rat Misty (links and info. at the end). My personal intentions for this readathon/reading challenge were to get myself to read 'more.' What does more mean to me? More than just graphic novels and 3 books a month, honestly. I've been reading at a pretty good pace in 2017 and have made my reading goals much more fluid, but I feel like because of this I have begun to fall off the reading wagon.

 For the past 17 days, I have yo-yo'd between graphic novels and actual novels several times, only to wind up here. Stuck with tons of books I own physically and the want to only play PS4 and watch YouTube. I've felt unmotivated like this only one other time this year, so I'm taking my current mood as a kick in the butt to just READ SOMETHING ELSE. I'm putting down my current read, The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham and looking to greener pastures.

What do I want to read next? I'm thinking something standalone, preferably under 400 pages, and of course scifi. As I also resurrect this reading blog, I will be updating you with some of the details I keep out of my BookTube/YouTube (it's both, not just BOOKS, guys!) videos. I want this to be something separate from my videos because I enjoy writing and can sometimes formulate much more coherent thoughts in written format versus rambling at my phone camera.

Where you can find Book Rat Misty:
YouTube - BookRatMisty
Blog - The Book Rat

2016 Reading Goals Wrap-Up ... #failure

Well, let’s just start off by kicking the dust off these web pages. It’s been quite a few months since I updated this blog, or my YouTube channel. I’ve still been reading, but my habits have changed. I’ve grown to enjoy my love for reading graphic novels and not just feel guilty when I read them instead of normal novels. I read an absolute ton of them in 2016, and as 2017 seems to really settle in, I’ve read even more of them.

My Goodreads goals have become pretty arbitrary, but I still enjoy tracking my progress and keeping my running tally of books I’ve read. But really, the reason I failed most of my goals… is because I just want to read and not keep confined to a box. Pretty chill, right? The Man can’t stop me, right? Honestly, I just feel that my reading habits change with my mood, my current work or financial situation, whether or not I’m stressed or want to go to bed. I’ve honestly let everything loose and just read when I want to, and what I want to.

So let’s look at the fails, yes?

2016 Goals Wrap-Up

• Reading 3 classics - FAILED
•  Read 3 books I can’t seem to finish (or start) - COMPLETED
1. 172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad (finished 8/10)
2. The Pox Party by M. T. Anderson (finished 9/29)
3. Unsouled by Neal Shusterman (finished 4/3)
• Reading 2 books that were added during each year I’ve had a Goodreads account (2012-15) - COMPLETED
• 2012
1. Bumped by Megan McCafferty (finished 1/14)
2. Disclosure by Michael Crichton (finished 9/15)
• 2013
1. Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs (finished 4/9)
2. The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer (finished 3/7)
• 2014
1. Vicious by V. E. Schwab (finished 5/6)
2. The Walking Dead vol. 1 by Robert Kirkman (finished 6/12)
• 2015
1. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick (finished 1/10)
2.  The Retribution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin (finished 1/26)4
• Participate in 1 read-a-thon - COMPLETED
• #RYBSAT Round 7 (January 9-25)
• Read 5 e-books that I already own - FAILED
1. Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi (finished 2/23)
2. Reached by Ally Condie (finished 5/26)

No classics? No problems. I am honestly not too concerned about my lack of classics this year. I wasn't inclined to read them because they weren't at the front of my mind. I am personally upset that I didn't get through any of my older e-books. My e-reader is practically on the brink of exploding with how many downloads I have. Although my flooding bookshelves IRL are the most visually striking evidence that I had books to read, my e-books are much easier to avoid. In the next year, I'll have to commit more time to my e-reader so I can archive some books!

Review: The Many Selves of Katherine North by Emma Geen

Disclaimer: I received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Many Selves of Katherine North by Emma Geen

Published June 7, 2016

Plot Overview

We follow Kit, a nineteen-year-old phenomenaut for ShenCorp, a company that specializes in projecting a person's consciousness into that of a lab-grown animal. This technology proves crucial to understanding different species' environments, experiences, and general biology. Kit has been 'jumping' as a phenomenaut for ShenCorp for seven years, fulfilled by the idea that she is helping the company understand animals' motives and needs so that humans and animals can coexist peacefully. ShenCorp has the ability to project Kit, and other phenomenauts, into many different species including but not limited to birds, fish, and large mammals. Despite her seemingly successful, and abnormally long, experience with ShenCorp, Kit starts experiencing strange and unexplained anomalies during her jumps. No longer sure if her employer has the same goals as her, Kit has to decide if she will pursue her suspicions or continue to play along with ShenCorp's new business model.

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My Review

This book has a slightly confusing, slow start, but man does it really catch you. Personally, the free copy I received was a little strange when it came to format, but considering the general science-y vibe that comes along with this story, I wasn't entirely sure if it was intentional or not.

Thriller. I wasn't expecting this book to move at such a fast pace once I got into it, but considering the mysteries and company secrets that Kit comes to uncover, it can only be expected that she must be on her toes in order to not be discovered. I felt that as the reader, I was successfully made to side with Kit in her discoveries of suspicious information via her phenomenaut jumps.

Science!! Almost constantly, I felt as if the author must have truly done a great deal of scientific research in the writing of this novel, or possibly even had some sort of Biology degree. The science of phenomenautism is extremely well thought-out and detailed. Not only that, but the different species that are encountered are so greatly varied and described at such length that I immediately took Kit's experiences in their bodies as truth and fact. I'm not 100% sure if all of the things that she experiences were truly how different species exists, but I guarantee that you will agree: Emma Geen really has an eye for describing the environment from unexpected perspective.

I truly enjoyed my experience with this novel and I'm excited that it will be in print very shortly! I would definitely recommend this to readers who enjoy the more science-centric science fiction, not only the existence of something artificial or theoretical, but the true, very convincing descriptions of how something could exist. This novel was written with a critical reader in mind who is no stranger to the scifi genre.

My Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Goals Discussion & March Reading Wrap-Up

3 months into 2016 and I feel as if I've been leading a reading lie. On Goodreads, I set myself a goal of reading 45 books this year. In my mind, that meant 45 novels. Like many other book lovers, I have several hundred books on my TBR list. Some of which I truly want to read, while sometimes I use my TBR list as  dumping place to put titles that I just want to look into. More often than not, I will purge my list and decide that some books can be passed by, but others remain. Beyond this, simply looking at my Goodreads challenge is where I see the issue: I did not take into account the fact that I sometimes read manga, graphic novels, and childrens' picture books. These are easy reads (in length, not necessarily in meaning) and mean I can quickly zoom through sometimes 5 or more pieces of literature in a single day.

Where does this put me? As of the end of March 2016, I've read 35 books toward my 45 book goal. But, here are the stats of what I actually read:

13 novels (37%)
9 graphic novels & comic books (26%)
4 manga (11%)
9 children's picture books (26%)

In reality, I have only read 13 novels toward my goal of 45. To reiterate, I am only 3 months into 2016 so I do have time to recover this clearly unbalanced reading pattern. And I do understand I'm kind of freaking out over something that is ultimately pretty silly in the long run, but as a person who does enjoy setting and sometimes meeting goals, this is upsetting!

Anyway, on to the wrap-up (which may or may not be in video format later!). Any blog posts or video reviews associated with these will be included below, but if I only did a short review on Goodreads, make sure to check out my ongoing 2016 review list here.

The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan

The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

(click for review - blog)

A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro

(click for review - video)

Tampa by Alissa Nutting

(click for review - video)

The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan

(click for review - video)

Mamasaurus by Stephan Lomp

Isabella: Girl on the Go by Jennifer Fosberry

Zeus: King of the Gods by George O'Connor

The White Cat and the Monk by Jo Ellen Bogart

Earrings! by Judith Viorst

Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess by George O'Connor

WHY? by Nicholas Popov

The Many Selves of Katherine North by Emma Geen

**ARC from Netgalley - ETA publish date: June 2016

March TBR: ARC Goals

Happy Sunday, everyone! I know it's halfway through March already, but I've accumulated a few ARC books that I would like to get off my TBR pile by the end of this month! 2 of which were acquired through the book store that I work at and the last is an e-book copy from Net Galley (a website I may speak about in its own post sometime down the road..).

1. Slade House by David Mitchell
     Think haunted house, weird mystical happenings, British pub. I haven't read any reviews of this yet in order to avoid spoiling it (because it's a relatively short book), but a coworker of mine recommended it. This book came out ~November 2015, so this is a book that is already published... However, how can one simply turn down a free ARC? I'm sure once I've actually read this one, I'll have a much more coherent synopsis for you guys.

2. The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner
     A coming of age story focused on several characters, but mostly on the son of a minister who has been forced to handle poisonous rattlesnakes (perhaps to hone his .... spirituality??). Well... this one is also already out as of last week, but it's a book that I'd been eyeing for a few months. I rarely come across well-written YA novels from a male perspective, so that already has me really intrigued.

3. The Many Selves of Katherine North by Emma Green
   From what I've gathered, our main character, Katherine North, works for a company that has the ability to meld the mind of an individual with an animal. I believe this brain-shift 'thing' (for lack of a better word) is meant to help scientists better understand the emotional basis of animal behaviors, such as fight or flight... However, in one particular circumstance, the animal that Katherine is inhabiting either dies or nearly dies, and she becomes aware that perhaps the company she works for does not have the best intentions for using this information. This is such a WEIRD concept that I just had to try this book out. I'm hoping it is as amazing as it appears to be.

I'll definitely keep you guys in the loop with reviews for these ARCs!

February Reading Wrap-Up!

Hey guys, if you follow my YouTube channel you will see that I posted a reading wrap up for the month of February 2016. If I do say so myself, I think that I did a pretty good job... *pats self on the back* Here's the video:

Here are the books that I read, and I've included links to my Goodreads reviews in order to see them more efficiently!

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman

(click for review)

Journey by Aaron Becker

Quest by Aaron Becker

Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson

(click for review)

Room by Emma Donoghue

(click for review)

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

(click for review)

Cat Naps by Robin Haywood

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Since I feel like keeping track here (just for my own benefit), that puts me at 53% done with my 2016 Goodreads reading goal of 45 books! Of course, at this point my goal is kind of silly because maybe 1/4 of the books I've read so far have been single issues of comics or volumes of manga... But perhaps my final number come December 31st will be exponentially more than 45 in order to justify my 'cheat books.'

Hope y'all enjoyed the video and I'll see you guys in the next one!

Review: The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

Originally Published: September 2002

Plot Overview

The World: In a time when illegal drug production is the most structurally sound economic system, the country of Opium is prosperous. Opium is a strip of land that covers the border between the United States of America and what was once Mexico, now called Aztlán. The king of this drug empire: El Patrón, an ancient man who craves for the way of life he knew as a child, over 100 years ago. Opium is thriving because of its product: poppy plants. The expansive fields of poppy are farmed by eejits, almost literally mindless workers that must be commanded to remember their most basic of functions such as rest, drink water, work.

The Boy: Our main character is Matt, or Matteo Alacrán, a pre-adolescent clone of El Patrón. Matt has been kept a secret from El Patrón's descendants who currently reside on the poppy farm. Matt does not know what it means to be a clone or why everyone thinks he is no better than an animal, a beast, a mistake. Matt is extremely intelligent and precocious. He seeks out answers, he is willful and outspoken; he is much more like the powerful El Patrón than any of the family would like to admit.

The Problem: El Patrón is creeping on 150 years old. Through medical procedures that Matt cannot begin to fathom, El Patrón has plateaued into a state of mental decay, while his physical health appears to wax and wane. El Patrón may favor and care for Matt's studies and well-being, but the weaker the old man becomes, the closer Matt realizes he is to danger of being dismissed, killed, or worse by the Alacrán estate. They loathe him for being a 'filthy' clone whose very existence is unnatural, so if his benefactor, the very man whose DNA he shares, passes away... what will become of the filthy beast?

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My Review

Wow. Just... wow. Do you ever have a book on your shelf that you bought years ago, but you really can't remember what it is supposed to be about or why you originally wanted to read it? The House of the Scorpion is that book for me on so many levels. I asked for this book several years ago as a Christmas present, but something about the semi-lackluster cover just threw me off. I knew very little about the plot and even less about the author, but as part of my 2016 bookish goals to read more from my old TBR lists, I picked up this book about a week ago and never looked back.

I had no idea to expect a science fiction novel from what the excerpt led me to believe was a relatively realistic book. Without spoiling too much of the midway-point plot, cloning is almost one of the least scientifically advanced projects that is present in this novel. Nancy Farmer has created a very scary world within a more old-school Mexico story. Because El Patrón is so stuck in his old childhood, it is not surprising that he limits the residence of his family to such a technology deprived way of life. Some of the undertones of the overall plot included: clone rights, classism, socialism, and even basic human rights.

The reason I loved this book? It was not at all what I expected. I'm a huge fan of dystopian novels and general science fiction, but mixed in with family drama and a morally suspicious drug farm: incalculably entertaining. At times, I felt like I was watching a telenovela (or for those of you out there not into your daytime television, a Spanish soap opera) with no short of disapproving father figures and outbursts of rage or excitement. Don't let that description fool you, for although this is a book about Matt's family 'drama,' it is also an infuriating mash up of the ways in which a 'subhuman' clone can be disrespected and shoved around. It really made me think about what it means to be a person, or more specifically an individual. Matt is quite literally not an individual, and struggles with the fact that he is a clone of a feared drug lord daily. He is afraid for his life, for the lives of the few individuals in the estate that actually care for him as a human being, and Nancy Farmer has created an easy to bond with character in this book. This is by far the most connected I've felt with a main character in a while, not to mention it was a boy almost half my age!

This was an exciting book I will be holding onto for a long time to come. I'm not 100% sure if I will read the sequel (that came out over a decade after the original), but you guys will be the first to know if I do!

My Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Welcome!

Hello anyone out there... Finally, I have a reading blog!

I've considered having a written blog to coincide with my booktube channel, but for some reason it's been a procrastinating mess leading up to this point..

But here it is, and here I am! I hope that this blog will act as a midway point for when I don't have the time or energy to post videos on my YouTube channel, but I don't want to just be lazy and write a Goodreads review.

My reviews and posts here will be a little more in-depth than what my Goodreads ones have been, and will hopefully supplement what I will post on my channel.

Until I have a new review for you guys, poke around in the links up top to see what's going on and stay tuned for some goodies!

-Angel