Left neglected
(Book)

First-person narrator Sarah Nickerson is a 37-year-old, overachieving multitasker with a Harvard MBA and a demanding job as vice president of human relations at a Boston consulting firm. Her husband, Bob, works at a struggling tech start-up and shares in the upbringing of their three young children in an affluent suburb. Then there's a car accident on a rainy November morning, and a traumatic brain injury leaves Sarah with "left neglect," a lack of awareness of anything to her left, including the left side of her own body. The one person who can help when insurance runs out is Sarah's mother, Helen, yet their relationship has been rocky ever since Helen was a virtually absentee mother for Sarah after Sarah's brother, Nate, died in childhood. As Sarah's struggles parallel those of her 7-year-old son, Charlie, just diagnosed with ADHD, there is healing of body, mind, and mother-daughter relationship and acceptance that "normal is overrated." Neuroscientist Genova (Still Alice, 2009) once again personalizes an actual disabling brain condition to create irresistibly readable and moving fiction. --Michele Leber

Not AR Rated,NOT AR RATED