Oh god this book is terrifying. It made me very aware that I have a brain made out of fallible meat parts, and that a small thing fucking up one of those meat parts would turn me into a raving lunatic. Which is exactly what happened to the author.
The book only exists because the damage is reversible, but the amazing thing is that once her disease is diagnosed, 200 people are found to be treatable. That means god knows how many women were living ordinary happy lives and then got sick and went mad from this disease, never knowing how or why.
Reviews and Comments
I like books.
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Will Sargent rated The book of (even more) awesome: 3 stars
The book of (even more) awesome by Neil Pasricha
"The second book of awesome things by internationally best-selling author Neil Pasricha"--
Will Sargent rated Velvet: 4 stars
Velvet by Ed Brubaker (Velvet #1)
When the world's greatest secret agent is killed, all evidence points to Velvet Templeton, the personal secretary to the Director …
Will Sargent reviewed Brain on fire by Susannah Cahalan
The book narrates Cahalan's issues with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis and the process by which she …
Review of 'Brain on fire' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
Will Sargent reviewed No Place to Hide by Glenn Greenwald
In June 2013, reporter and political commentator Glenn Greenwald published a series of reports in …
Review of 'No Place to Hide' on 'Storygraph'
5 stars
It doesn't say anything he doesn't write in his articles, but it's good to have it all in one place.
Will Sargent reviewed Know-It-All by Jacobs, A. J.
Review of 'Know-It-All' on 'Storygraph'
So, guy reads the encyclopedia. Great idea for a book, right?
This guy is an idiot. And while he admits it frankly and spends most of the book trying to tell entertaining stories about his family and wife, he's not Mil Millington. He's boring. And this is the worst kind of journalistic exercise -- to do something completely pointless for a book, writing that into the book, and then writing how everyone is trying to talk you out of the book. You're never going to get any insight, there's not going to be an interesting discussion of intelligence or semantics or ontologies -- you're going to get an anecdote of how he got into Mensa by using his utterly privileged white-boy standard SAT scores, and then failed the actual test so badly they refunded his money and said it was better not to tell him how badly he did.
Made …
So, guy reads the encyclopedia. Great idea for a book, right?
This guy is an idiot. And while he admits it frankly and spends most of the book trying to tell entertaining stories about his family and wife, he's not Mil Millington. He's boring. And this is the worst kind of journalistic exercise -- to do something completely pointless for a book, writing that into the book, and then writing how everyone is trying to talk you out of the book. You're never going to get any insight, there's not going to be an interesting discussion of intelligence or semantics or ontologies -- you're going to get an anecdote of how he got into Mensa by using his utterly privileged white-boy standard SAT scores, and then failed the actual test so badly they refunded his money and said it was better not to tell him how badly he did.
Made it up to page 117.
Will Sargent reviewed 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill
20th Century Ghosts is American author Joe Hill's first published book-length work. A collection of …
Review of '20th Century Ghosts' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
Good. I found some of the stories fairly silly (I can't buy the idea of a living balloon child just wandering around waiting to get punctured) but the story about the boy who turned into a giant locust was nicely brutal.
Will Sargent reviewed Sandman by Neil Gaiman
A humble young monk and a magical, shape-changing fox find themselves romantically drawn together, but …
Review of 'Sandman' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
Can't believe I missed this. It's a beautiful book, and as good as the Sandman #50 that Russell did. The depiction of Dream himself is beautiful (Russell goes the extra mile to depict images in his robes) and the Fox is appropriately foxy in all aspects.
Will Sargent reviewed The Mirage by Matt Ruff
Wonderful alternative history (flipping a real tragedy on its head) where fundamentalist Christians bomb towers …
Review of 'The Mirage' on 'Storygraph'
3 stars
Interesting, but I felt the character development was off, and it didn't feel like a book by someone who had lived in the Middle East for a long time -- it felt like a book written by an American with some source material. Also, as soon as the plot moves to America, it gets way too cute with naming (or not naming) politicians and terrorists.
Will Sargent rated Catastrophe Disentanglement: 3 stars
Will Sargent rated Practical DWR 2 Projects (Practical Projects): 2 stars
Will Sargent reviewed It's Not All About Me by Robin Dreeke
Review of "It's Not All About Me" on 'Storygraph'
5 stars
An actual good book.
Will Sargent rated Reality is broken: 4 stars
Reality is broken by Jane McGonigal
Visionary game designer Jane McGonigal shows how we can harness the power of computer games to solve real-world problems and …
Review of 'The architecture of open source applications' on 'Storygraph'
3 stars
This is a series of essays, and it doesn't have any overarching theme. As such, the result is mixed -- there are some good bits, and some awful bits. Some bits were good just from a historical perspective (i.e. the development of Sendmail) but overall it was not very enlightening.
Will Sargent reviewed Developing with Dojo by Matthew Russell
Review of 'Developing with Dojo' on 'Storygraph'
3 stars
If you want to develop with Dojo, this is the book.
No, seriously. There is only one book on Dojo, and this is it.