If you're looking for a 240 page book about what it's like when your 15 year-old-daughter has a psychotic break, I can recommend this book. The tone is immediate and honest without being too confessional and the whole thing is, well, short. Worth it for the page count and as a side-dish for the Year of [b:Magical Thinking|7815|The Year of Magical Thinking|Joan Didion|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165644384s/7815.jpg|1659905]. Another plus for the memoirs-of-not-famous-people genre. ( )

This is a memoir from the point of view of a father as he watches his 15-year-old daughter spiral out of control into a manic episode, on her way to a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

I expected to really enjoy, or rather at least relate to this book. I have a good friend who went through her first manic episode around age 20, and I thought it might be refreshing to read about something similar from a parent's point of view. But I really didn't care much for this book. It really wasn't written all that well and the author went off topic a lot. As a memoir, I suppose he's entitled to do that, but based on the book description, I expected there to be more meat to this story. As it was, it was rather dull and only about 60% of the book dealt directly with his daughter's illness. I'm not sure that I've actually read any other books dealing directly with bipolar disorder, but I suspect there are much better choices out there than this one. ( )

A father's account of his daughter's sudden onset of bipolar disease. ( )

The subject was a bit tough to listen to but what an awesome writer Mr. Greenberg is - just to listen to how he writes is sentences describing the neighborhood and the hospital and his brother and daughter was a pleasure. I'm sorry they've had such issues (and our family does too, so I can totally empathize) but, wow, I really enjoyed just listening to a word craftsman. Mr. Greenberg is a good narrator (audiobook) too. Highly recommend just for the quality of writing, though if you have issues with reading about mental breakdowns in their raw form, this might not be the best book for that. ( )

books about people bookbox; The journalist father chronicles the summer his 15 yo teen daughter descended into manic psychosis and was hospitalized. Intriguing and challenging "what is madness?" The author also cares for a schizo older brother, and inserts info about madness documented by other geniuses, such as James Joyce's life with his psychotic daughter, and depression and suicide in the Hemingway family. He also meets a Hasidic Jewish family, and talks about that religion's handling of psychotic individuals in their community. Very eye-opening. This book will move along in the Medicine Chest bookbox. ( )