Review by New York Times Review
In "Mental: Lithium, Love, and Losing My Mind," Lowe's skills as a rock journalist are on full display - her writing is fast-paced, glossy and chock-full of New York names. This story too follows the onset, diagnosis and treatment of the author's bipolar disorder, but the book's stated aim - to be both memoir and journalistic exploration of the history and uses of lithium - is never realized. The result is a memoir that seems bent on dodging the usual memoir clichés, but in doing so, overcorrects, falling prey to the solipsism it tries to avoid. There is very little in the way of scene or reflection, and this absence robs the book of both narrative pull and any emotionally revelatory power. The research-driven passages feel like Wikipedia entries, summary and brief; additionally, there are a number of points at which the reader would welcome supporting evidence for the author's sometimes overly broad claims, such as the assertion that lithium is "usually the first medication tried with bipolar patients" and is "effective for most of them," both statements difficult to prove. The narrator herself stops taking lithium when it causes kidney damage, prompting a personal quest in which she travels to the world's natural lithium sources; however, this more concerted investigation of the element and its uses doesn't begin until more than twothirds of the way through the book. While authors are rarely responsible for the design, title or marketing copy of their books, "Mental" promises to delve into both personal experience and substantive research. Instead, the book - which is filled with photographs of the author, clip art and too-clever chapter titles - reads more like a rock bio than a memoir or a work of serious journalism. Coupled with misleading language, inadequate sourcing and a shaky sense of its own intentions, "Mental" never adds up to more than the sum of its parts.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [February 11, 2018]
Review by Booklist Review
At 15, Lowe began hallucinating and stopped eating and sleeping. She was hospitalized, diagnosed as bipolar, and prescribed lithium, which is the focus of her memoir. Describing her unremarkable childhood, she lists eating pancakes, climbing trees, listening to Michael Jackson, and going to the beach, somewhat defensively cataloging evidence of her normalcy. But can her eventual bipolar episode be described? Lowe's stunning introduction proves that it can: music pulsating in syncopation with my anxiety . . . feeling the chorus like combat and clouds crashing as she saw the waves of sound cascading from speaker to skin and tasted them. She believes her high-school autobiographical piece on bipolarity functioned somewhere between a confessional and a PSA. Not so this readable, moving, and accessible account of her episodic madness and lithium-maintained stability that will keep readers engrossed with her often painful, sometimes funny story, whose well-researched information on this age-old malady complements her enlightening journey.--Scott, Whitney Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Lowe (Digging for Dirt: The Life and Death of ODB, 2008) deconstructs her decadeslong battle with bipolar disorder and the drug that brought her sanityat the cost of her physical health.Until the day she learned it was slowly destroying her kidney function, lithium was nothing less than the author's elixir of life, the one thing that could tame the mania that had afflicted an adolescence obsessed with messianic beliefs and the secret location of a tunnel to Michael Jackson's Neverland ranch. Those delusions, in addition to the haunting aftereffects of sexual molestation endured years before, landed Lowe in the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute with a seemingly endless supply of lithium-filled Dixie cups. Initially resistant to medication, she relented and slowly began to recover. "Once it was explained that this was an element in everyone's body and that I just needed more, the three pink pills in the Dixie cup didn't seem so bad," writes the author. Buoyed by lithium's stabilizing power, the author managed to navigate college and set her sights on a new career as a magazine writer in New York City. With an apartment and an entry-level gig at House Garden secured, life seemed to be going so well that the idea of tapering off lithium didn't seem to be far-fetched. Unfortunately, that turned out to be a terrible idea, and Lowe embarked on one of the most self-destructive periods of her life. In analyzing her illness, the author dives deep into not just her personal relationship to lithium, but the experiences of others as well. She chronicles her globe-trotting odyssey of self-discovery to the great salt flats of Bolivia, which contain more than half of the world's lithium supplies, and beyond. In the end, her often chaotic chronicle operates as an earnest memoir of personal triumph and an illuminating expos of a type of medication that continues to be a source of great debate. A moving exploration of mental health and the efficacy of available treatment. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
