Helpful Score: 1
Is bipolar disorder genetic? Can it be passed down from generation to generation? This book made me think twice about these questions and even do some research of my own. With three definite generations battling various levels of the disease and hints at even more family members suffering from the disease in the past, it was very interesting to read about the different ways this disease can manifest and affect people. The other thing that the author did a fantastic job of was showing how other family members are affected by the attention that those who suffer get due to their disease.
By far, this was not an easy read due to subject matter, but it was definitely an intriguing read.
By far, this was not an easy read due to subject matter, but it was definitely an intriguing read.
Stephanie G. (thestephanieloves) reviewed What I Had Before I Had You: A Novel on + 241 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
As Olivia Reed's family begins to fall helplessly apart in the wake of a dry affair and along with her recently diagnosed son's growing instability, she whisks her children away from their once-comforting ranch in Texas, doing the one thing she does best: run. She knows she's out of her mind going back to the place she left behind long ago, the place where she is certain her ghosts still reside, but in an act of desperation, she has no choice; she's hometown-bound, and the moment she steps onto the long-missed boardwalk and breathes in the salty ocean air, she knows she has made a mistake.
Losing her son, combined with the familiarity of Ocean Vista, conjures various memoriesof her first love, of her best friends, and most painfully, of the one person she never fully forgave: her mother. What I Had Before I Had You exposes Olivia's life in its slow, harrowing full, alternating between her unfairly influenced, unsupervised childhood and the unsettling, untold present-day. It sweeps readers through the lonely adolescence, teenage rebellion, and liberal prominence of the 1970's and 80's, all the while describing the frenzied, unnerving search for Daniel in the present, before escalating to the fateful summer when everything changedwhen Olivia first indulged in her art of abandonment.
Reading this book was an experience itself. The brief glances into Olivia's shaky childhoodthe result of a mentally ill but in-denial mother and the burden of independence that came much too earlyas well as the current frustrations over muting her disorder while simultaneously muting herself, are penetrating, completely eye-opening. Cornwell masterfully balances the struggles of hereditary bipolar disordernot only a diagnosis, in Olivia's bloodline, but also an inheritanceand the struggles of being a motherof being humanin this glittering narrative.
Olivia's past is told with a vintage filter, a dusky, dreamy undertone; deeply periodic and exquisitely lush, it involves Myla's divine convictions, sleepless nights spent alone, and the unaware suffering she felt as a childboth unmedicated and uninformed. This is the childhood that adult Olivia has tried so hard to forget, the childhood that her family now knows nothing about, and as it unravels with ruthless precision and targeted blows, it culminates into the story of what happened when she was fifteenthe summer of extreme emotions and ultimate betrayal.
I was even further impressed by how complex the storytelling is; it isn't simply a factual retelling, it isn't just a secret revealed. Olivia's past is narrated with the haze of an unreliable brain, a time-worn rememberer; readers are only given the version of events that have become Olivia's own, tempered by her imagination and improved by the million small revisions of memory. We will never know whether the emotions presented, as intense as they are, have been dulled by time, weathered by maturity, and this is the entire essence of the novelthis is Olivia's pain, which, through Cornwell's rare gift for detailing and piercing hearts, readers feel, themselves.
Pros: Emotionally searing // Evocative; beachy, warm setting // Nostalgic; memories of childhood revealed with a tragic veil of time // Writing is powerful and poetic // Biting, wounding, affecting // Insightful; psychologically and stunningly precise // Phenomenal incorporation of the past into the present // Historically and culturally rich, vivid
Cons: Slow start // Disorienting at times
Verdict: Heartbreaking, silver-lined, and deeply meaningful, What I Had Before I Had You meditates on one mother's frantic search for her son, as well as on the even more hazardous search for herself. Sarah Cornwell elegantly constructs the thin membrane that separates childhood from parenthood in this luminous debut; as if slipping in and out of consciousness, the storylines alternateunwinding slowly, lazily at first, and then gaining torque, and consequently, destructive powera depiction of the debilitating effects of a mental illness such as bipolar disorder. This novel blends together the tenderly told story of a failed first love, the bittersweet flavor of resurrecting family ghosts and family history, and the delicate, learned craft of holding on and letting goindeed, an intoxicating melange.
Rating: 9 out of 10 hearts (5 stars): Loved it! This book has a spot on my favorites shelf.
Source: Complimentary copy provided by publisher via tour publicist in exchange for an honest and unbiased review (thank you, Harper Collins and TLC!).
Losing her son, combined with the familiarity of Ocean Vista, conjures various memoriesof her first love, of her best friends, and most painfully, of the one person she never fully forgave: her mother. What I Had Before I Had You exposes Olivia's life in its slow, harrowing full, alternating between her unfairly influenced, unsupervised childhood and the unsettling, untold present-day. It sweeps readers through the lonely adolescence, teenage rebellion, and liberal prominence of the 1970's and 80's, all the while describing the frenzied, unnerving search for Daniel in the present, before escalating to the fateful summer when everything changedwhen Olivia first indulged in her art of abandonment.
Reading this book was an experience itself. The brief glances into Olivia's shaky childhoodthe result of a mentally ill but in-denial mother and the burden of independence that came much too earlyas well as the current frustrations over muting her disorder while simultaneously muting herself, are penetrating, completely eye-opening. Cornwell masterfully balances the struggles of hereditary bipolar disordernot only a diagnosis, in Olivia's bloodline, but also an inheritanceand the struggles of being a motherof being humanin this glittering narrative.
Olivia's past is told with a vintage filter, a dusky, dreamy undertone; deeply periodic and exquisitely lush, it involves Myla's divine convictions, sleepless nights spent alone, and the unaware suffering she felt as a childboth unmedicated and uninformed. This is the childhood that adult Olivia has tried so hard to forget, the childhood that her family now knows nothing about, and as it unravels with ruthless precision and targeted blows, it culminates into the story of what happened when she was fifteenthe summer of extreme emotions and ultimate betrayal.
I was even further impressed by how complex the storytelling is; it isn't simply a factual retelling, it isn't just a secret revealed. Olivia's past is narrated with the haze of an unreliable brain, a time-worn rememberer; readers are only given the version of events that have become Olivia's own, tempered by her imagination and improved by the million small revisions of memory. We will never know whether the emotions presented, as intense as they are, have been dulled by time, weathered by maturity, and this is the entire essence of the novelthis is Olivia's pain, which, through Cornwell's rare gift for detailing and piercing hearts, readers feel, themselves.
Pros: Emotionally searing // Evocative; beachy, warm setting // Nostalgic; memories of childhood revealed with a tragic veil of time // Writing is powerful and poetic // Biting, wounding, affecting // Insightful; psychologically and stunningly precise // Phenomenal incorporation of the past into the present // Historically and culturally rich, vivid
Cons: Slow start // Disorienting at times
Verdict: Heartbreaking, silver-lined, and deeply meaningful, What I Had Before I Had You meditates on one mother's frantic search for her son, as well as on the even more hazardous search for herself. Sarah Cornwell elegantly constructs the thin membrane that separates childhood from parenthood in this luminous debut; as if slipping in and out of consciousness, the storylines alternateunwinding slowly, lazily at first, and then gaining torque, and consequently, destructive powera depiction of the debilitating effects of a mental illness such as bipolar disorder. This novel blends together the tenderly told story of a failed first love, the bittersweet flavor of resurrecting family ghosts and family history, and the delicate, learned craft of holding on and letting goindeed, an intoxicating melange.
Rating: 9 out of 10 hearts (5 stars): Loved it! This book has a spot on my favorites shelf.
Source: Complimentary copy provided by publisher via tour publicist in exchange for an honest and unbiased review (thank you, Harper Collins and TLC!).
