There is no sugar coating in McLaughins novel. She is honest about what it is like living with and being the mother of bipolar children.
She holds nothing back and makes a voice for those who need to be and can't be heard. Her writing is passionate and shows the love she has for her family.
This book will move you and keep you busy reading for days. I say days rather than hours because the subject material can make you over emotional and require you to step away for a breather.
Grade: B+
Synopsis
When not one, but two, of Kate's children were diagnosed with adolescent-onset bipolar disorder, her mind ran through all the images of crazy the media fed to her over the years. She saw Margot Kidder, naked and shorn, in the bushes of an LA suburb, Jack Nicholson, first in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and then shouting "Redrum!" in The Shining. She saw sad faces and damaged bodies in Girl, Interrupted and grew ever more frightened.
She couldn't have known then that her children's illnesses would deliver even more frightening and horrifying scenes. Nor could she have known that her family's bipolar journey would spawn personal growth and spiritual changes likely unearned in a less extraordinary way.
Kate has lived and learned through cut wrists, overdoses, wee-hour 450 mile road trips, and hallucinations of black men emerging from a child's lily-white leg. She's lived and learned through mental ward stays, friend's revulsion, years of keeping secrets, and the freedom of telling the truth. She's learned to live with less judgment and more acceptance, less anger and more joy, less fear and more love.
She holds nothing back and makes a voice for those who need to be and can't be heard. Her writing is passionate and shows the love she has for her family.
This book will move you and keep you busy reading for days. I say days rather than hours because the subject material can make you over emotional and require you to step away for a breather.
Grade: B+
Synopsis
When not one, but two, of Kate's children were diagnosed with adolescent-onset bipolar disorder, her mind ran through all the images of crazy the media fed to her over the years. She saw Margot Kidder, naked and shorn, in the bushes of an LA suburb, Jack Nicholson, first in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and then shouting "Redrum!" in The Shining. She saw sad faces and damaged bodies in Girl, Interrupted and grew ever more frightened.
She couldn't have known then that her children's illnesses would deliver even more frightening and horrifying scenes. Nor could she have known that her family's bipolar journey would spawn personal growth and spiritual changes likely unearned in a less extraordinary way.
Kate has lived and learned through cut wrists, overdoses, wee-hour 450 mile road trips, and hallucinations of black men emerging from a child's lily-white leg. She's lived and learned through mental ward stays, friend's revulsion, years of keeping secrets, and the freedom of telling the truth. She's learned to live with less judgment and more acceptance, less anger and more joy, less fear and more love.
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