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Book Review of Left Neglected

Left Neglected
Left Neglected
Author: Lisa Genova
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Paperback
mizsuzee avatar reviewed on + 8 more book reviews


A while back I read this authors first book entitled Still Alice and absolutely loved it. That book was about a woman who developed early-onset Alzheimers Disease. Alice was a loveable main character and that made it easy to love the book. "Left Neglected" was about a 37 year old woman who was in a car accident and incurred brain damage which left her pretty much unaware of her left side. Unlike Alice, this main character, Sarah, was not particularly loveable. In fact, I didnt like this woman AT ALL through the first two-thirds of the book. I didnt even feel sorry for her when she got into the big accident. Why? Well, she was SO into herself and her high-powered job that she really had little time for her three kids or her husband. Maybe its just me. I think that having a job is great (obviously, as Ive had one for all of my adult life) but I also place more importance on family than this woman did. That aside, it WAS interesting to learn about the real neurological condition of left neglect. People really DO suffer from right-sided brain damage that leaves them unaware of anything on their left side. Medically, this was a very interesting book! Towards the end, I began to like Sarah more. She struggled with her disability, learned to love her family more, and faced hard decisions with more than the how would that affect my job mentality.