LEFT NEGLECTED

Beautiful book, written by a medical doctor. Excellent expression of real life issues in realistic settings faced by working parents in nuclear families. Teaches you the value of life without sermonising. This book got me very eager to the author’s first book (which is actually a best seller) “Still Alice.”

As a caregiver, family member or friend, we try to understand what the disabled person is going through, we think we can put ourselves in their place and help them deal with the struggles. This book gave me so much insight into the mental and physical struggles that people face every day.

Lisa Genova is best known for Still Alice, of which an excellent film has been made, but her other novels exploring neurological problems, their impact on the individual who has them and their family, are well worth reading. Of all of her books Left Neglected is possibly the most positive in tone, dealing with the ongoing effects of traumatic brain injury. It is compassionate and honest about the struggle to accept the dramatic limitations and loss of previous abilities which the injury brings in the first half of the narrative. In the second half both the central character and her son who has neurodiverse issues with ADHD, come to terms with living with limitations, but also finding ways to adapt positively to them and to enjoy life differently but no less really, on their own terms. It is a book which will encourage not only those living with neurological damage, and their care givers, but everyone trying to accept the things we can not change, have courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Gut verpackt und vollständig bei uns angekommen, eben alles zu 100% in Ordnung.

A thoroughly enjoyable read. Full of interesting facts about a neurological disorder and it's recovery. Also great human interest.. I recommend this book by a great writer.

Couldn’t sleep in the middle of the night so I got up and finished reading Left Neglected by Lisa Genova. Sarah Nickerson had a high level corporate job, putting in 80 hour days and her husband was super busy in his job too. They are both very intelligent and Harvard educated. She depended on multitasking to survive her busy schedule. The couple's together time was about nil due to her career and her three young children. She wanted so badly to be with them more and felt guilty about itShe had a car accident, hydroplaned on the highway and ended up with right part of her brain missing. That is called Left Neglect. There was a secondary story about her relationship with her mother who she felt had abandoned her when her baby brother died. Her mother stayed alone in her room for years while Sarah longed for her mother's company.Left Neglect is a syndrome that even though your eyesight is still there your brain does not register that you are seeing the left side of the room, page, etc. The author said that President Woodrow Wilson had that when he had his stroke. Sarah went through the shock of not seeing anything on the left, of not knowing where her left arm or left was, unable to button her blouses, unable to see her children when they were on the left side of the room. What is that like? Lisa Genova studied this condition and then interviewed people with this condition before writing this story. That is why what Sarah feels, says and does seems so real.I highly recommend Left Neglect to everyone interested in brain injuries and brain syndromes and families.