Brain on Fire (Audiobook Review)

In a way, more startling than a Stephen King novel, Brain on Fire is the story of how, suddenly and without a known cause, Susannah Cahalan went from successful and neurotypical journalist to a paranoid mess who could barely speak coherently.

Any fan of medical mystery TV, like House, or similar books will be sure to enjoy this one. 

“We are, in the end, a sum of our parts, and when the body fails, all the virtues we hold dear go with it.”

Cahalan’s abilities as a journalist certainly shine through in her memoir; It’s detailed and extremely well-researched. Although she can’t remember most of her time in the hospital, she paints a full picture of her time there thanks to journals from her parents, interviews with friends and doctors, and surveillance tapes of her own room. She does a fantastic job of reporting on herself from an unbiased perspective and talking about her best and worst moments without hiding any of her experiences, which is difficult to do.

In the end, I really appreciated how she took the time to note that her story ended up a certain way partly because of her privilege, and makes notes of other people who have gone through what she did that were not as lucky.

The only downside to this type of journalistic approach was that, in the beginning, it somewhat sapped out the tension. 

The idea of what happens to Cahalan is honestly terrifying, and all the more so because it’s true, and I wanted to feel that. Part of this may be due to the narrator of the audiobook, who, at times, had too much of a Google Assistant voice, not to mention the occasional moments I cringed as she tried and failed at several accents. 

“The brain is a monstrous, beautiful mess.”

But it can also be attributed to the fact that, in the beginning, Cahalan often describes what is happening to her and then follows this up by saying that this is ‘unlike how she would have acted.’ I would have liked to spend more time with her before her symptoms started. That way we could have seen her day-to-day ‘normal’ life and understood this without just being told. It also would have painted a clearer picture. But I understand that Cahalan made sure to document her time of illness to later understand, while she would have had no reason to think she should document her everyday life before this, and so it would be harder to write about. Not to mention that some readers would have undoubtedly said it was too boring to include.

There were also several moments where we are lead to believe that her symptoms might be caused by one thing or the other, but these lines of thought are not allowed to carry on because we are told outright that she would later find out they were wrong. I would have rather followed the course of the red herrings and incorrect diagnoses, following her own journey of discovery just as it happened, especially because it would have created more twists, turns, and surprises.

“Sometimes, Just when we need them, life wraps metaphors up in little bows for us. When you think all is lost, the things you need the most return unexpectedly.”

I rated Brain on Fire 4.5 out of 5 stars. I would recommend this book to fans of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and similar medical anomaly memoirs.