Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness

Contributed by Aiden, gr. 12,  Dec. 2018

In the memoir Brain On Fire, the reader is thrown into the world of a young woman struggling with a mysterious autoimmune disease and who thinks she’s on the road to insanity.

This book is about a successful 24 year old women who is a journalist for the New York Post. Cahalan has her own apartment, a boyfriend, and even a cat. Overall, Cahalan is very independent; however, one day everything changes. Cahalan starts to experience bizarre symptoms, and she is not acting like her regular productive, outgoing self. She thinks she is going crazy. Eventually, due to her unusual behavior, her friends and family start to worry, and she is admitted into hospital where she is called “violent, psychotic, and a flight risk.” Cahalan becomes an intriguing patient and a medical mystery. Her perplexing disease leaves her and her loved ones questioning whether or not she will ever recapture her identity. This novel is fascinating and informational, and it left me with a new understanding of a rare disease.

Most of this novel takes place at the NYU Medical Center (a hospital in New York), meaning that there was some medical jargon which was could be slightly confusing for a reader. Other than this potential drawback, I found that this memoir was a  fairly quick read and easy to understand. Cahalan’s writing was captivating, and I found myself wanting to keep reading  more. She includes some personal journal entries as well as those of her parents, which were interesting because they offer a personal view of her gripping journey. 

I would recommend this memoir to anyone interested in psychology and the inner workings of the human brain. This book explores the effects of which a disease can have on someone both physically and psychologically. As Cahalan struggles with her disease, she also struggles with maintaining relationships and understanding her identity.