malongorose's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
5.0
readinglibraesq's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness and Medical content
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Blood
Minor: Vomit
tvwallerson's review against another edition
5.0
Very good, very saddening, lent to me which made me like it even more
kittycatcat's review against another edition
4.0
i really liked this book! the prose is poetry-like, making for a very smooth reading process. it was beautiful to read, which feels kind of strange b/c her narrative isn't happy, or positive, or even very hopeful. this book was very humbling to read, delicate & robust all at once.
brogan7's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.75
Everything goes sideways when Sarah Manguso develops a strange and debilitating disease at age 21. She talks about her treatment and the stall of her life. She talks about becoming addicted to steroids. She talks about envying the rich girls, the upper class families.
I liked it because it was so plain-spoken, but in the end I wanted a little something. Didn't you feel for your parents? Or isn't there one thing you loved and you're so excited about, that is real and in front of you and available?
I liked it because it was so plain-spoken, but in the end I wanted a little something. Didn't you feel for your parents? Or isn't there one thing you loved and you're so excited about, that is real and in front of you and available?
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction and Medical content
madisonlawson's review against another edition
5.0
I'm not a very emotional person, but Sarah Manguso picked up my emotions like a plastic sack of eggs and threw them against a brick wall. Reading this wonderful memoir (5 stars, btw) was a decision that would result in me crying (not literally, but I would have if I had an ounce of emotions) because it reminded me why I love reading so damn much.
While keeping her distance from an obviously horrendous and traumatic experience, Manguso tells an honest, quick paced, truthful, and emotional story of her life and the disease that interrupted it. At a young age, Manguso was hospitalized with chronic idiopathic demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP), a persistent form of Guillain-Barré syndrome: an autoimmune disease that attacks the nervous system, causing spreading numbness and paralysis. If the disease wasn't treated regularly with her blood being cycled, removing the bad blood (or plasma) with new, fresh, and clean blood, than it would have spread to her lungs and suffocated her. Instead, she was left with this half hearted, poor excuse for a 'treatment,' which really just left her in the hospital, often paralyzed, and unable to live a normal life.
The story is told in what can only be described as flash nonfiction essays strung together to create a memoir read like a novel. It is not in chronological order, which fits with Manguso's hesitance to exist in space-time, but once read, you can get a decent overall picture of what her life was like in those years. You are able to see the empathy in the people around her, or really, lack there of. She makes clear the struggles, the successes, the metaphors, the fears, and the desires.
I don't want to go further in fear of reducing this wonderful memoir to a simple blog post that does not do it justice, but let me just say this: you can read this in one sitting and you should. Then re-read it. Then take a break to dwell on what you just read. Then read it again.
Experience it because it deserves to be experienced.
While keeping her distance from an obviously horrendous and traumatic experience, Manguso tells an honest, quick paced, truthful, and emotional story of her life and the disease that interrupted it. At a young age, Manguso was hospitalized with chronic idiopathic demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP), a persistent form of Guillain-Barré syndrome: an autoimmune disease that attacks the nervous system, causing spreading numbness and paralysis. If the disease wasn't treated regularly with her blood being cycled, removing the bad blood (or plasma) with new, fresh, and clean blood, than it would have spread to her lungs and suffocated her. Instead, she was left with this half hearted, poor excuse for a 'treatment,' which really just left her in the hospital, often paralyzed, and unable to live a normal life.
The story is told in what can only be described as flash nonfiction essays strung together to create a memoir read like a novel. It is not in chronological order, which fits with Manguso's hesitance to exist in space-time, but once read, you can get a decent overall picture of what her life was like in those years. You are able to see the empathy in the people around her, or really, lack there of. She makes clear the struggles, the successes, the metaphors, the fears, and the desires.
I don't want to go further in fear of reducing this wonderful memoir to a simple blog post that does not do it justice, but let me just say this: you can read this in one sitting and you should. Then re-read it. Then take a break to dwell on what you just read. Then read it again.
Experience it because it deserves to be experienced.
felixculpa's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
zoemig's review against another edition
3.0
"All autoimmune diseases invoke the metaphor of suicide. The body destroys itself from the inside."
The Two Kinds of Decay by Sarah Manguso is a memoir of her battle with a rare and debilitating disease, a chronic form of Guillain-Barre syndrome called CIDP (Chronic Inflammatory Demvelinating Polyneuropathy) which causes her blood to produce antibodies which attack her nervous system, starting at the peripheral and moving inwards, from her feet and hands to her most vital organs. The treatments that Manguso has to go through during her nine-year battle with the disease are painful and only sometimes effective, from blood cleaning to four and a half years on steroids, even when they help with the disease they often have negative side effects like mood disorders and weight gain.
Manguso's writing has a beautiful lyricism to it, and the memoir is written in bite-sized fragments, often only a couple sentences to a paragraph. I was not surprised when I learned Manguso was also the author of several poetry collections, as The Two Kinds of Decay is filled with poetry, even in the most painful situations Manguso is raw and honest. At one point she even admits that her disease has made her a worse person, bitter instead of compassionate, which she thinks is extremely unfair. It is not a book that is looks for sympathy, it is simply the story of what happened to her and how she coped. Unfortunately at times I found it veered too far into the medical, and the detailed descriptions of painful medical procedures took away from the overall impact of the book. The Two Kinds of Decay is most successful when Manguso talks about the human aspect of her disease, how it impacted her as well as her interactions with others, how it made her into the person she is today, and it is for those passages of honesty, of which I wish there was more, that I recommend the book.
The Two Kinds of Decay by Sarah Manguso is a memoir of her battle with a rare and debilitating disease, a chronic form of Guillain-Barre syndrome called CIDP (Chronic Inflammatory Demvelinating Polyneuropathy) which causes her blood to produce antibodies which attack her nervous system, starting at the peripheral and moving inwards, from her feet and hands to her most vital organs. The treatments that Manguso has to go through during her nine-year battle with the disease are painful and only sometimes effective, from blood cleaning to four and a half years on steroids, even when they help with the disease they often have negative side effects like mood disorders and weight gain.
Manguso's writing has a beautiful lyricism to it, and the memoir is written in bite-sized fragments, often only a couple sentences to a paragraph. I was not surprised when I learned Manguso was also the author of several poetry collections, as The Two Kinds of Decay is filled with poetry, even in the most painful situations Manguso is raw and honest. At one point she even admits that her disease has made her a worse person, bitter instead of compassionate, which she thinks is extremely unfair. It is not a book that is looks for sympathy, it is simply the story of what happened to her and how she coped. Unfortunately at times I found it veered too far into the medical, and the detailed descriptions of painful medical procedures took away from the overall impact of the book. The Two Kinds of Decay is most successful when Manguso talks about the human aspect of her disease, how it impacted her as well as her interactions with others, how it made her into the person she is today, and it is for those passages of honesty, of which I wish there was more, that I recommend the book.
queentessie's review against another edition
4.0
I have read this book as someone from the other side of those she's describing in her experiences. I work in the medical field and to read how sometimes our actions/words can affect a person going through such a debilitating illness. It really makes one step back and think, have I done something similar to someone else? I've seen many different types of practitioners along the way. I noted through observations that It's so easy in the medical field to go in and discuss diagnoses and treatments in such a nondescript way because it's done on a daily basis and forget there's a person on the other end of these diagnoses. It's so easy to lose sight of that when work piles up and patients are waiting to be seen. I always try to remember that you are talking to another human being on the other end of these complex and sometimes terrifying diagnoses. I try to put myself in their shoes and think about what my reaction would be to something that's going to be said. It makes a notable difference to a patient and their progress if you show genuine care and compassion. I've also experienced this. Patients notably do much better in an atmosphere of compassion and empathy. Some of these things unfortunately are not taught or focused much on in all forms of schooling. I found this book incredibly well written in a way that can put clinicians in the patient's shoes. I enjoy books like this that can help me relate better to patients in anyway that may help benefit their care and progress. Studies have shown that patients with optimistic attitudes tend to do much better in healing after surgeries than those who are not. I am glad this story had a good ending for the patient.