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The Stroke That Changed My Life
by Christine Hyung-Oak Lee
A memoir of reinvention after a stroke at thirty-three, based on the author's viral Buzzfeed essay.
Christine Hyung-Oak Lee woke up with a headache on New Year's Eve 2006. By that afternoon, she saw the world - quite literally - upside down. By New Year's Day, she was unable to form a coherent sentence. And after hours in the ER, days in the hospital, and multiple questions and tests, she learned that she had had a stroke. For months, Lee outsourced her memories to her notebook. It is from these memories that she has constructed this frank and compelling memoir.
In a precise and captivating narrative, Lee navigates fearlessly between chronologies, weaving her childhood humiliations and joys together with the story of the early days of her marriage; and then later, in painstaking, painful, and unflinching detail, her stroke and every upset, temporary or permanent, that it causes.
Lee processes her stroke and illuminates the connection between memory and identity in an honest, meditative, and truly funny manner, utterly devoid of self-pity. And as she recovers, she begins to realize that this unexpected and devastating event provides a catalyst for coming to terms with her true self.
"A fascinating exploration of personal identity from a writer whose body is, thankfully, 'no longer at war.'" - Kirkus
""Fearless... [Lee's] engaging memoir...makes a difficult topic accessible and relatable. Lee expertly explains how the brain works and how even a damaged brain can adapt. Her narrative is both scientific and emotional, revealing the wonders of biology and the power of the human spirit." - Booklist
"A brave, encouraging, genuine work of healing discovery that shows us the ordinary, daily effort it takes to make a shattered self cohere." - Floyd Skloot, author of In the Shadow of Memory
"The stuff of poetry and of nightmares… [Lee] investigates her broken brain with the help of a journal, beautifully capturing the helplessness, frustration, and comic absurdity (yes, a book about a stroke can be funny!) of navigating life after your world has been torn apart." - Susannah Cahalan, author of Brain on Fire
"Lee excavates her life with the care of an archeologist in this stunning memoir...Her account is lyrical, honest, darkly comic, surprising, and transcendent in the way it redefines the importance of family history, memory, and what of it we choose to hold with us. A beautiful book." - Christa Parravani, author of Her: A Memoir
This information about Tell Me Everything You Don't Remember 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.
Christine Hyung-Oak earned her undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley and her MFA at Mills College. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in the New York Times and on Buzzfeed and the Rumpus, among other publications. She has been awarded a Hedgebrook residency, and her writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
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