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Book Summary and Reviews of Against Medical Advice by James Patterson & Hal Friedman

Against Medical Advice by James Patterson & Hal Friedman

Against Medical Advice

One Family's Struggle with an Agonizing Medical Mystery (Not Eligible for Ay)

by James Patterson & Hal Friedman

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  • Oct 2008, 304 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Cory Friedman woke up one morning when he was five years old with the uncontrollable urge to twitch his neck. From that day forward his life became a hell of irrepressible tics and involuntary utterances, and Cory embarked on an excruciating journey from specialist to specialist to discover the cause of his disease. Soon it became unclear what tics were symptoms of his disease and what were side effects of the countless combinations of drugs. The only certainty is that it kept getting worse. Simply put: Cory Friedman's life was a living hell.

Against Medical Advice is the true story of Cory and his family's decades-long battle for survival in the face of extraordinary difficulties and a maddening medical establishment. It is a heartrending story of struggle and triumph with a climax as dramatic as any James Patterson thriller.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Inspiring...a testament to the importance of family and the resilient nature of the human spirit." - George Pelecanos.

"Both harrowing and heartbreaking, but also a story of astonishing courage. This book stands as a testament to the amazing power of one family's unconditional love for each other." - Tess Gerritsen.

"Against Medical Advice is a true story that reads like the most riveting of pageturners. Read it and feel at gut-level what it's like to be a child whose life is almost destroyed by a hellish array of nightmare medical symptoms. Best of all, watch what happens when an entire family stands together against all odds, armed with strength, perseverance, and love for one another." - Lisa Scottoline.

"A work of naked truth, as disturbing as it is important - Against Medical Advice turns Tourette's Syndrome inside out and shows us what it is like to be trapped inside a brain that has a nightmarish mind of its own. This true story of Hal Friedman's son, Cory, is a gift of honesty, huge courage, and hope, and a reminder that against all medical advice and odds, human beings can prevail." - Patricia Cornwell.

This information about Against Medical Advice was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Beverly Cregger

Against Medical Advice
A wonderful book. Cory is an amazing young man to have endured the pain and suffering that he went though. He has a wonderful family, too.
I loved the book.

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Author Information

James Patterson & Hal Friedman Author Biography

James Patterson has created more enduring fictional characters than any other novelist writing today with his Alex Cross, Michael Bennett, Women's Murder Club, Private, NYPD Red, Daniel X, Maximum Ride, and Middle School series. As of January 2016, he has sold over 350 million books worldwide and currently holds the Guinness World Record for the most #1 New York Times bestsellers. In addition to writing the thriller novels for which he is best known, he also writes children's, middle-grade, and young-adult fiction and is also the first author to have #1 new titles simultaneously on the New York Times adult and children's bestsellers lists.

The son of an insurance salesman and a schoolteacher, Patterson grew up in Newburgh, New York, and began casually writing at the ...

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