Health

While the information about brain hemispheres is useful, the author's personal insights become incredibly
Repetitive in the final chapters.
Her retelling of her time during the stroke is powerfully told and worth reading. ( )

Interesting book relating a neuroanatomist's memory of suffering a stroke and the experiences that followed during the months of recovery.

This was a quick read but full of hope for those who have suffered a brain injury and also full of valuable information and advice for those who are caretakers. ( )

I found this book fascinating. The author is a neuroscientist who has a massive stroke and lost the use of the left half of her brain. It took many years for her to recover fully. Her description of life with just the right brain sounded very similar to an enlightened nirvana-like state. A really interesting study of how we can choose how to interact with the world. ( )

2.5 stars

I thought this was going to be about the author's experience having a stroke and her recovery… a very small part is about that, but she didn't go into too much depth.

More of the book is focused on her spiritual beliefs, which contradict the Bible in just about every way. The author believes the right hemisphere of the brain houses the "authentic self," and that our left brain does a lot of good things for us but in its essence, is a judgmental, negative jerk that needs to be stopped.

Taylor apparently doesn't fully understand that we are spiritual beings in addition to physical ones, misunderstands the purpose of prayer, doesn't recognize that every thought that pops into our heads isn't necessarily our own, states evolutionary theory as fact, and believes that we can "think ourselves good/perfect," to put it succinctly. In reality, while we can all choose to be "better" in various ways, we can only be sin-free with the power and forgiveness of Jesus.

Note: Taylor uses a couple of swear words. And the book, short though it is, is quite repetitive. ( )