Book Review #41: "Patient H.M."

Hey Everyone,

     I am going to review the book "Patient H.M: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets,"  by Luke Dittrich. This book is hot off the press as it is just released today August 9, 2016 by Random House Publishing Group. For those of you who are interested in purchasing a copy of this book CLICK HERE. This book is an intimate story of the author's grandfather and his famous patient Henry Molaison. It is about Henry Molaison a young man who had a lobotomy due to his frequent seizures. Naturally this book discusses the prevalence of lobotomy's mostly performed on the mentally ill. Henry Molaison was important because the lobotomy of his brain allowed scientists and researchers to make many new discoveries about the mapping of the brain, memory, how memory works and how it is stored. It also talks about the ethics regarding performing brain surgery, and what kind of consent is needed for research. 

     Overall I rated this book four stars out of five. This was an in-depth look into the life of Henry Molaison. This book is extremely well researched, and it is apparent how much the author invested in writing this book. I really did enjoy reading it, especially its descriptions of the various different settings that this book took place in Connecticut. Being that I grew up in Connecticut this story was all that much more interesting to be able to imagine the backgrounds of where this story took place. I did feel that this book could have been shorter, in that there were sections that could have been cut out. And that this book could have been organized better in that it often went off in many different tangents, that it was sometimes difficult to see how they played a part in this story. I was amazed how the author being the grandson of one of the main characters, how he wrote an unbiased, and fair account of this story. And this is one story that needed to be told, so I am very happy I got the chance to read this book.

     I would like to thank Netgalley, Luke Dittrich, and Random House Publishing Group for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Until the next page,

Jill