A review by clovetra
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks

challenging informative slow-paced

2.0

this is my first sacks’ read and honestly i’m a bit let down. now this might be because i study psychology at uni but my god was this a drag at times.
for one, it reads like a textbook. the amount of times i wanted to cry because he mentioned the basal ganglia is higher than id like to admit. psychology is a special interest of mine but my god did i want to dnf this so many times simply because it felt like homework. 
also, i sadly think sacks’ writing style isn’t my cup of tea. at times he overexplains something quite simple, with pages and pages of quotes essentially saying the same thing. it felt like groundhog day at times where i’d just keep reading the same thing but reworded slightly. i do enjoy case studies, but at some points specific cases dragged on. less is more sometimes sacks. 
i’ll be honest and say i did cry reading this though, simply because of clive’s story. fuck that one hit me hard.
sadly though, me crying because one story resonated with me does not save this book in my mind. honestly i feel like i used less brain power writing an essay on the complex cognitive changes on OCD. like i’m so serious id pick this up and immediately get a headache.
i might try another novel of sacks, but my god was this a SLOG for me. i’d defo rec it to someone with a love of music and/or psychology, but this was not a fun experience for me LMAO
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