5/5 stars
At thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. This memoir chronicles his transformation from a naïve medical student "possessed," as he wrote, "by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life" into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.
What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.
What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.
Such a beautiful, well-written book! I listened to this as an audiobook- a short 5 hours, and I have no regrets.
Kalanithi has a strong command of his words as they hypnotize you, making you feel all kinds of emotions. I am left awestruck at his brilliance. The bookish part of me wishes he took up literature for the better bits of his life, for we would be blessed with wonderful literary marvels.
Trigger warnings: the book deals with topics of death, terminal illness, and cancer.
It is extraordinary how much Kalanithi accomplished in a short life. In this incomplete memoir, he touches on most events in his life, from childhood to parenthood and the turning points. I wish this book had the popularity it deserves.
Anyone who is considering the medical field must read this. The author gives an idea of what life as a medical resident looks like, as a huge chunk revolves around that phase in his life. If read this, don't skip out on the foreword and epilogue, written by Abraham Verghese and Lucy Kalanithi respectively.
The narrator does a splendid job of putting emotion into this book, and I highly recommend you listen to it in the audio format.
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