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Reviews tagging 'Chronic illness'
No Time Like the Future by Michael J. Fox, Michael J Fox
6 reviews
shellballenger's review against another edition
slow-paced
1.75
Type of read: Commuter Read.
What made me pick it up: It's Michael J. Fox. Need I say more?
Overall rating: A big thank you to Fox for sharing their experiences, memories, and musings with us readers. As someone who has a family member with PD and has seen how this disease worms its way into every part of life, every decision you make, I enjoyed listening to how Fox has taken everything on and not allowed, or at least tried to not allow, PD to be a deciding factor to their happiness but I did find that I needed to pace myself. This is not a bingeable book, at least not in the audio format.
'No Time Like the Future' is not one of my favorite memoirs that I've read. I do feel like someone was like 'Hey Michael, you should write a memoir!' and they just decided to write a stream of word vomit and personal thoughts on a life lived and a life worth living. 'No Time Like The Future' is not a straight-through storyline. While there's continuity because it's all about Fox and their life/experiences, and they do somewhat follow a linear move from past to present, this isn't a chapter-to-chapter story going through a specific timeline.
Reader's Note: If you choose to read it as an audiobook (which I did) it is narrated by the author. I found I needed to slow my typical reading speed down (normally a 1.75 girly) to a "normal" 1.00 speed due to the tone, intonation, and flow of Fox's narration.
What made me pick it up: It's Michael J. Fox. Need I say more?
Overall rating: A big thank you to Fox for sharing their experiences, memories, and musings with us readers. As someone who has a family member with PD and has seen how this disease worms its way into every part of life, every decision you make, I enjoyed listening to how Fox has taken everything on and not allowed, or at least tried to not allow, PD to be a deciding factor to their happiness but I did find that I needed to pace myself. This is not a bingeable book, at least not in the audio format.
'No Time Like the Future' is not one of my favorite memoirs that I've read. I do feel like someone was like 'Hey Michael, you should write a memoir!' and they just decided to write a stream of word vomit and personal thoughts on a life lived and a life worth living. 'No Time Like The Future' is not a straight-through storyline. While there's continuity because it's all about Fox and their life/experiences, and they do somewhat follow a linear move from past to present, this isn't a chapter-to-chapter story going through a specific timeline.
Reader's Note: If you choose to read it as an audiobook (which I did) it is narrated by the author. I found I needed to slow my typical reading speed down (normally a 1.75 girly) to a "normal" 1.00 speed due to the tone, intonation, and flow of Fox's narration.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Chronic illness and Medical content
superiour_medium's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
A delightfully optimistic memoir perfectly executed, as Fox delivers a heartfelt reflection on mortality from the perspective of someone with a great deal of experience with loss & medical struggle. Perhaps even better-the book does not harp on his most famous role, Marty McFly, any more than ABSOLUTELY necessary.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content
Moderate: Chronic illness and Death
ashfantastic98's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
4.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Chronic illness, Death, and Medical content
kelly_e's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Title: No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality
Author: Michael J. Fox
Genre: Memoir
Rating: 4.00
Pub Date: November 17, 2020
T H R E E • W O R D S
Inspiring • Unselfish • Intimate
📖 S Y N O P S I S
Diagnosed at age 29, Michael has been raising global awareness of the disease and helping find a cure through The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, the world’s leading non-profit funder of PD science.
In No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality, Michael shares personal stories and observations about illness and health, aging, the strength of family and friends, and how our perceptions about time affect the way we approach mortality.
💭 T H O U G H T S
I know Michael J. Fox from his time on Spin City, but especially for all the work he has done advocating for Parkinson's Disease, which made me particularly interested in picking up his latest memoir No Time Like the Future.
And this is vintage Michael J. Fox! Written with his signature wit and optimism, it's a glimpse into his thoughts and feelings on a wide array of topics including his dog, his family, his career, and his health. Written with great emotion, it felt like a love letter to his family and life from someone staring down his own mortality.
The writing style does take some getting accustomed to, as it jumps from one place to the next without much warning. Yet at the end of the day, this book has something to offer everyone. It's a reflection on life, love and loss.
📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• celebrity memoirs lovers
• Michael J. Fox fans
• readers who like stories of resilience and hope
🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S
"When I visit the past now, it is for wisdom and experience, not for regret or shame. I don’t attempt to erase it, only to accept it."
"Good things can come from bad things."
Author: Michael J. Fox
Genre: Memoir
Rating: 4.00
Pub Date: November 17, 2020
T H R E E • W O R D S
Inspiring • Unselfish • Intimate
📖 S Y N O P S I S
Diagnosed at age 29, Michael has been raising global awareness of the disease and helping find a cure through The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, the world’s leading non-profit funder of PD science.
In No Time Like the Future: An Optimist Considers Mortality, Michael shares personal stories and observations about illness and health, aging, the strength of family and friends, and how our perceptions about time affect the way we approach mortality.
💭 T H O U G H T S
I know Michael J. Fox from his time on Spin City, but especially for all the work he has done advocating for Parkinson's Disease, which made me particularly interested in picking up his latest memoir No Time Like the Future.
And this is vintage Michael J. Fox! Written with his signature wit and optimism, it's a glimpse into his thoughts and feelings on a wide array of topics including his dog, his family, his career, and his health. Written with great emotion, it felt like a love letter to his family and life from someone staring down his own mortality.
The writing style does take some getting accustomed to, as it jumps from one place to the next without much warning. Yet at the end of the day, this book has something to offer everyone. It's a reflection on life, love and loss.
📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• celebrity memoirs lovers
• Michael J. Fox fans
• readers who like stories of resilience and hope
🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S
"When I visit the past now, it is for wisdom and experience, not for regret or shame. I don’t attempt to erase it, only to accept it."
"Good things can come from bad things."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness, Terminal illness, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, and Alcohol
Minor: Death and Death of parent
spinesinaline's review against another edition
funny
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
I’ve read a lot of memoirs so far this year, not necessarily intentionally, but this is the first by someone I knew before I read their book! I really like Michael J. Fox as an actor and person so I was excited about this release.
I haven’t read any of Fox’s other books (so many memoirs) so I don’t know how this one fits into his memoir series thus far. This one mostly focuses on his medical experiences in 2018 following a fall, with lots of flashbacks to his diagnosis with Parkinson’s, his acting career, life with his family, and more recent experiences as an activist to provide context.
Sometimes celebrity books don’t work out so well but this was really funny and flowed well. From these pages, Fox is very clearly an optimist. I will say that this is very much his story – his experiences with disability and the access to care that he’s had in his life. In some parts he does recognize the privilege he has in being able to retain top doctors across the country but many won’t have access to these kinds of hospitals and rehab that he describes in much detail.
I haven’t read any of Fox’s other books (so many memoirs) so I don’t know how this one fits into his memoir series thus far. This one mostly focuses on his medical experiences in 2018 following a fall, with lots of flashbacks to his diagnosis with Parkinson’s, his acting career, life with his family, and more recent experiences as an activist to provide context.
Sometimes celebrity books don’t work out so well but this was really funny and flowed well. From these pages, Fox is very clearly an optimist. I will say that this is very much his story – his experiences with disability and the access to care that he’s had in his life. In some parts he does recognize the privilege he has in being able to retain top doctors across the country but many won’t have access to these kinds of hospitals and rehab that he describes in much detail.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness, Medical content, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Death of parent
Minor: Alcoholism
marylinaris's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
“No Time Like the Future” was the first Autobiography/Memoir I’ve ever read, it just was never a genre I felt any interest in. Somehow though the marketing of this particular book got to me and now I finally ended up reading it. I started this last year, in line to get my second Covid shot, and put away quite quickly and a little scandalized. Again, this was my first Memoir, and I felt like I was prying into someone’s private life and thoughts were I had no business to be, a hurdle I got over fast when I picked it up again this month.
Now to the book itself. The storytelling jumped from one event to another, from one year to a decade before to two month later - it should be confusing but Fox managed to tie all these experiences together, finding the invisible string throughout his life and ties all these different experiences together to one thoughtful conclusion.
I really enjoyed the tone he brought to the book, reflective and fun at the same time. The book also made me tear up a lot, especially when he speaks about his wife, his love for her is just dripping off the pages.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Chronic illness
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cancer, Medical content, and Death of parent