More or Less Maddy
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4.4 • 28 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
From the bestselling author of Still Alice and Inside the O'Briens comes a breathless, riveting novel about a young woman diagnosed with bipolar disorder who rejects the stability and approval found in a traditionally 'normal' life for a career in stand-up comedy.
Maddy Banks is just like any other stressed-out student at NYU. Between exams, navigating life in the city, and a recent breakup, it's normal to feel overwhelmed. It doesn't help that she's always been the odd one out in her picture-perfect Connecticut family. But Maddy's latest low is devastatingly low, and she goes on antidepressants. She begins to feel good, dazzling in fact, and she soon spirals into a wild and terrifying mania that culminates in a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
As she struggles to find her way in this new reality, navigating the complex effects bipolar has on her identity, her relationships, and her life dreams, Maddy will have to figure out how to manage being both too much and not enough.
With her signature 'deep empathy and insight' (Booklist), Harvard-trained neuroscientist and New York Times bestselling author Lisa Genova has crafted another profoundly moving novel that makes complicated mental health issues accessible and human. More or Less Maddy is destined to become another classic.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the stirring latest from neuroscientist and novelist Genova (Still Alice), an NYU student's life is changed by the onset of bipolar disorder. Twenty-year-old Maddy Banks, an aspiring songwriter and stand-up comic, is accustomed to life's ups and downs, but at the start of her sophomore year, she feels "the opposite of okay." During her first manic episode, she engages in risky sexual behavior, racks up $20,000 in debt, and believes she's writing songs for Taylor Swift and a comedy special for Netflix. After threatening her mother with a knife, she's briefly hospitalized and reluctantly moves back home to Connecticut, where she attempts to find stability. Eventually, she returns to the city, where she performs at comedy clubs and stops taking her meds. After another manic episode and hospitalization, Maddy must decide if she's ready to follow her doctor's orders and figure out what is "normal" happiness and sadness versus the onset of mania and depression, and what she can do to embrace her disorder without letting it define her. Maddy is a well-drawn character, offering readers a sympathetic look at what it's like to live with a bipolar diagnosis, and Genova's signature empathy and insights are on full display. It's a remarkable achievement.
