Book Blog #325: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

 

Title: When Breath Becomes Air

Author: Paul Kalanithi

# of Pages: 157 (ebook)

Genre: Non-fiction, Autobiography

Rating: ★★★★☆

Synopsis: At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi's transformation from a naïve medical student "possessed," as he wrote, "by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life" into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality. What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir. Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all.

Review: To meet my 2023 reading goal before the rapidly approaching deadline, I picked a short (~200 pages or less) book so I could finish in time.

I didn't know it was short because Kalanithi died while writing this book. 

Shortly before starting this book, I read Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, a therapist's book with a significant portion dedicated to talking about a patient who battled cancer in early adulthood (sub-40s). The common message between these books is how facing death makes us live fuller lives, but we should real live the lives we want NOW because death is inevitable. 

"I would have to learn to live in a different way, seeing death as an imposing itinerant visitor but knowing that even if I'm dying, until I actually die, I am still living." 

I found myself reading Kalanithi's words from the perspective that he was wise and authoritative - after all, he was a very accomplished man and was even a resident as a neurosurgeon. What makes Kalanithi's story stand out amongst other doctors is how he went from being a literature major to becoming a doctor in pursuit of what makes life meaningful. Through his diverse experiences, there were a lot of notable insights for him to share, such as:

- "It's very easy to be number one: find the guy who is number one, and score one point higher than he does.": If you measure success via being better than everyone else, then your level of success is directly correlated with how good everyone around you is. If the bar for success is lower, you will also be achieving a lower level of excellence. 

- "Only later would I realize that our trip had added a new dimension to my understanding of the fact that brains give rise to our ability to form relationships and make life meaningful. Sometimes, they break.": Living isn't just a manner of "being a live" - we need our brain to be able to operate in the world in a meaningful way. 

- "Yet the best-informed people - doctors - almost never donated their bodies. How informed were the donors, then? As one anatomy professor put it to me, 'You wouldn't tell a patient the gory details of a surgery if that would make them not consent.": I'm not sure how I feel about donating my or loved ones' bodies to science. 

At least I felt this way until he started comparing himself with Freud, who was also a successful neuroscientist, claiming that similarly wanted to move away from science to explore greater understanding of life. After this point, I couldn't help but feel reading Kalanithi as a bit domineering. He even included an bad experience with a slacking resident, which didn't show anything expect that Kalanithi was right - just as the reader would already expect. 

What emotionally hit the hardest was the portion written after Kalanithi's death by his wife, Lucy. Hearing about Kalanithi's death through her was heartbreaking and really made the book end on a strong note. I would even dare say that I was more moved by her writing style and account of events than any portion earlier in the book written by Paul. 

It's a short read, so I thought it was worth my time, even if it is unfinished. I would recommend it for those interested in Paul Kalanithi and can handle the heavy topics.

Book Blog #324: The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate

 

Title: The Book of Lost Friends

Author: Lisa Wingate

# of Pages: 375 (hardback)

Genre: Adult, Historical Fiction

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Synopsis: Louisiana, 1875 In the tumultuous aftermath of Reconstruction, three young women set off as unwilling companions on a perilous quest: Lavinia, the pampered heir to a now-destitute plantation; Juneau Jane, her illegitimate free-born Creole half-sister; and Hannie, Lavinia's former slave. Each carries private wounds and powerful secrets as they head for Texas, following dangerous roads rife with ruthless vigilantes and soldiers still fighting a war lost a decade before. For Lavinia and Juneau Jane, the journey is one of inheritance and financial desperation, but for Hannie, torn from her mother and eight siblings before slavery's end, the pilgrimage westward reignites an agonizing question: Could her long-lost family still be out there? Beyond the swamps lie the seemingly limitless frontiers of Texas and, improbably, hope.
Louisiana, 1987 For first-year teacher Benedetta Silva, a subsidized job at a poor rural school seems like the ticket to canceling her hefty student debt--until she lands in a tiny, out-of-step Mississippi River town. Augustine, Louisiana, seems suspicious of new ideas and new people, and Benny can scarcely comprehend the lives of her poverty-stricken students. But amid the gnarled oaks and run-down plantation homes lies the century-old history of three young women, a long-ago journey, and a hidden book that could change everything.

Review: This really wasn't the book for me.

What the author did well:

- I really liked the idea of this book - the story was based off a real "Lost Friends" column that aimed to reconnect families (especially slaves families freed post Civil War). The idea of delving into what it would be like to be the author of one of these Lost Friends ad is something that appealed to me and doubtlessly would appeal many other readers as well. 

What fell short:

- The first person POV switching. While I know I have a tendency to dislike this form of storytelling in particular, it really was ruining the experience for me in this book. Wingate not only switches POVs, she also will time skip ahead and then explain what happened in the gap a bit later into the chapter. This is disorienting for the reader and also frustrating when a chapter was left on a cliff hanger only to be resolved in an anticlimatic way in the next chapter from that person's POV. It also has the same issues where I start to get into one character's story, only for it to switch to the other character. Which lead me to my next point...

- Benny Silva is a weak character. She is one of the protagonists of the book and acts as the "modern" perspective on the story being told. At first, her POV was a relief because she is the character the audience can relate to the most as an outsider to all the history covered in this book. However, her being an English teacher and a "bibliophile" and her part of the story being centered around these characteristics made this character seem like Wingate played it safe in creating someone in her domain as a writer. 

- Benny Silva is an annoying character. She even said herself that she's overly optimistic. It's annoying that she has this attitude when most of the problem solving is done by those around her. The readers are meant to be impressed with what she accomplishes in the book, but I think she receives too much credit. 

- In fact, both protagonists (the other being Hannie) receive more credit than they should. Hannie's story was more interesting to read, and she was more of a real adventuring heroine, but a lot of the problems she encountered were solved by happy coincidences that were pretty unrealistic. 

- Wingates should tell less and show more. The reader gets more information through dialogue when many of the characters find themselves talking and explaining way more than what would seem natural if not to service as a plot device. 

- Romance doesn't need to be the center of the story, but if an author is going to put ANY in, it should be developed well. None of the relationships between characters (platonic or not) had the depth that would make the reader feel emotionally invested.

I debated between giving this book 2 or 3 stars and finally settled on 2 due to it being a chore to read. It was an okay story, but the execution could have been a lot better. I wouldn't recommend it. 

Book Blog #323: Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

 

Title: Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

Author: Lori Gottlieb

# of Pages: 379 (ebook)

Genre: Non-fiction, Autobiography

Rating: ★★★★★

Synopsis: One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose office she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but. As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients' lives -- a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen threatening to end her life on her birthday if nothing gets better, and a twenty-something who can't stop hooking up with the wrong guys -- she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very ones she is now bringing to Wendell. With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.

Review: This book will make you feel like you're going to therapy.

Okay, that could be a bit of an exaggeration. However, both Gottlieb's diverse experiences with her patients as a therapist and her experiences AS a patient offer a lot of wisdom delving into how and why we feel a certain way. Gottlieb covers a lot - from relationship troubles to grappling with death, this book tells several stories of her patients to even introduce some psychology theories (e.g. Prochaska's transtheoretical model of behavior change). 

This isn't to say that this Gottlieb is preaching ideas at the reader the whole time; she expertly weaves in the lessons she's learned through her time as a therapist as well as from her therapist into the "characters'" stories. It was sometimes hard for me to remember that the people mentioned in this book AREN'T just fictional characters (although Gottlieb says there are some modifications done to conceal identities). I couldn't help but be invested in their life stories and cheer for them as their "plots" progressed, crying with them when they encountered a tragedy in their lives. 

This book also served as a great reminder of lessons many of us probably already know (or seem obvious once you hear them). Some of these include:

• Acknowledging death's inevitability can make people live fuller lives rather than ignoring it and becoming "lazy". How meaningfully people live their lives can change how easily they can accept death vs despairing/regretting later in life. 
• Compassion doesn't always lead to forgiveness - you don't have to force your feelings just because society has a "playbook" of how to handle trauma. 
• The unknown is a common source of struggle for many, but at some point it is necessary to come to terms with never finding an answer. 
• People have more freedom than they realize, and adults can feel restricted from responsibilities. One way to regain some of their freedom is to regain emotional freedom. 

As someone who likes reading about human behavior, psychology, etc., this was right up my alley and VERY readable. Probably one of my favorite reads in the last couple of years at least. I would highly recommend this book!