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    Left Neglected
    Left Neglected
    Left Neglected
    Audiobook9 hours

    Left Neglected

    Written by Lisa Genova

    Narrated by Sarah Paulson

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    From neuroscientist and bestselling author Lisa Genova comes a story of resilience in the face of a devastating diagnosis. After a car crash leaves a vibrant mother in her thirties with a traumatic brain disorder called “left neglect,” she learns what truly matters most in life.

    Sarah Nickerson, like any other working mom, is busy trying to have it all. One morning while racing to work and distracted by her cell phone, she looks away from the road for one second too long. In that blink of an eye, all the rapidly moving parts of her over-scheduled life come to a screeching halt. After a brain injury steals her awareness of everything on her left side, Sarah must retrain her mind to perceive the world as a whole. In so doing, she also learns how to pay attention to the people and parts of her life that matter most.

    In this powerful and poignant New York Times bestseller, Lisa Genova explores what can happen when we are forced to change our perception of everything around us. Left Neglected is an unforgettable story about finding abundance in the most difficult of circumstances, learning to pay attention to the details, and nourishing what truly matters.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateJan 4, 2011
    ISBN9781442335400
    Author

    Lisa Genova

    Acclaimed as the Oliver Sacks of fiction and the Michael Crichton of brain science, Lisa Genova is the New York Times bestselling author of Still Alice, Left Neglected, Love Anthony, Inside the O’Briens, and Remember. Still Alice was adapted into an Oscar-winning film starring Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, and Kristen Stewart. Lisa graduated valedictorian from Bates College with a degree in biopsychology and holds a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard University. She travels worldwide speaking about the neurological diseases she writes about and has appeared on The Dr. Oz Show, Today, PBS NewsHour, CNN, and NPR. Her TED talk, What You Can Do To Prevent Alzheimer's, has been viewed over 2 million times.  

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    Reviews for Left Neglected

    4/5

    801 ratings101 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I loved this audiobook -
      It was so inspiring and motivated me to try harder ❤️
    • 5/5
      My second Lisa Genova book proved to be as mesmerising as Still Alice. I can relate to both protagonists as I was a college professor as well as a mother. The characters here were very well drawn. I am a fan now.
    • 5/5
      What an informative yet entertaining and very intriguing book. I loved hearing from her perspective the journey of having left neglect and how it connected with her change of values and quality of life. It made me reflect on my own work life balance and how fragile life is. Prioritize what is important. Its an excellent read.
    • 5/5
      I love this author’s writing style! Her clever analogies laced with humor held my interest from beginning to end. She brings relatable characters to life effortlessly, then using them to describe the medical phenomena of left neglect with both sensitivity and positivity.
    • 4/5
      It is a bit drawn out so I listened to the first 3 min of each chapter as I moved towards the end. I listened to the last 10 chapters. It is a beautiful story.
    • 5/5
      This was a very special book about a family who didn’t know how much they were missing until a tragedy forced them to slow down. This book was perfectly written, read and timed. The messages & lessons that live in this book will stay with me for a long time. Excellent book. I’m sad it’s over.
    • 5/5
      Interesting title that ended up being something so different that what I expected. So interesting and new. I loved Still Alice and this book was definitely similar. Heartwarming and inspiring story. Would LV to see it end up becoming a movie.
    • 5/5
      Excellent Read! Full of real life , love, humor, sadness, Strength, determination and acceptance ... not dwelling on one's disability but focusing on one's abilities
    • 4/5
      love Genova's writing style because it's so easy to get sucked into her books. All the blurbs on the cover say things along the line of "Clear your schedule" - and that's brilliant advice. It was incredibly hard to put the book down each time I had to go do something else. But above her writing style, I love Genova's subjects. She has a PhD in neuroscience, and has used that knowledge in both of her books I've read so far (Love Anthony being the other). The condition of "left neglect" that is the focus in this book is so fascinating, and I had never heard of it, so I was absolutely drawn in to learning about the condition. The characters are realistic as well, and the side story lines are really interesting, but her knowledge of neuroscience makes me eager to read more of her books and see what else she tackles.
    • 5/5
      Wonderful! Powerful! The story of Sarah, a woman who has it all; great job, great husband, great family. Sarah is multi-tasking daily and loves every minute of her life, although she occasionally hears a little voice telling her to slow down. Then one day, while trying to find her cell phone to make a call, she's in a car accident and ends up with Left Neglect. Now she is unaware of her left side or anything that happens on the left. The book follows her rehabilitation process and how she adjusts.
    • 5/5
      As I never read the blurb on a book, I was pleasantly surprised when I realised that the title had nothing to do with somebody being neglected! A fascinating subject and a reminder for us all that life's for living.
    • 2/5
      This is the fairytale, 1% version of TBI. I've lived in a Neuro unit for months and never seen anything this easy or unrealistic. The protagonist is narcissistic and not fleshed out enough to make me sympathize with her. The fact that her brain injury is one of the mildest I've heard of doesn't help either. This Cinderella story is almost completely unrelatable to me.
    • 2/5
      Same author of Still Alice, which I found to be a far better book. This one lacked any true depth or insight. Sarah Nickerson's high-powered double income life exhausted me, so it was hard to be sympathetic to its effect on her. When she has a car crash (her own fault -- cell phone related) she sustains a brain injury which prevents her from recognizing anything on her left, including that half of her own body. Here, Genova does a good job of describing this true medical condition, but it is so repetitious for the remainder of the book, that I became immune to Sarah's trials and tribulations. Quick read, but I'd put it to the bottom of the pile.
    • 5/5
      I was listening to This is Audible a while back and heard them interviewing Lisa Genova about her new book, Left Neglected. I've got to be honest, I was only halfway listening to it when it dawned on me that they were talking about a condition that my dad had a/k/a left neglect. At that point, I rewound the show and listened to the entire interview with my full attention. In Left Neglected, Sarah Nickerson has it all. She's got a Harvard degree, a high paying job, a loving husband and three beautiful children. One day while driving to work and making phone calls (something we're all guilty of), she looks away from the road and wrecks. The result is a traumatic brain injury that leaves her with left neglect. Basically, people with left neglect don't realize they have a left side. They will eat everything on the right side of their plate, put make up only on the right side of their face or dress only their right side.

      Lisa Genova did a wonderful job of conveying the condition. I can't count the number of times that I found myself laughing, or nodding or crying because she so accurately described scenes that have happened in my house while I'm caring for my dad. Also, the phrase "look left" is a constant mantra in our house. I felt like she really understood the condition and what it is like for someone to live with it. In one scene, Sarah's husband is telling her how simple it is to "look left" and she's trying to explain to him that to her there is no left. Sarah asks her husband to tell her everything he sees in the room and he does. Then, Sarah says:

      "Okay, now what if I told you that everything you see is only half of everything that's really here? What if I told you to turn your head and look at the other half? Where would you look?"

      I'm not positive that I particularly like her characters but the book gets an "A" just for the wonderful, and in my experience accurate, portrayal of left neglect.
    • 4/5
      Lisa Genova does not disappoint with this novel. You can feel for the characters. You get their love and their hurt and their struggles. I feel like I can sort of even understand what life might be like if my mind could not comprehend that there was a "left".

      Lisa is one of those authors that I know I can just read and enjoy any book that she writes.
    • 3/5
      I liked this book a lot, and I liked Genova's other novel. "Still Alice" as well. Both books are about women with neurological issues, but she does a great job of drawing a character you can relate to and of situations you can imagine yourself in. I was drawn in immediately.
    • 4/5
      pretty good. a tiny bit predictable but atill4a great read.
    • 5/5
      The narrator suffers a traumatic brain injury in a car accident. She is diagnosed with "left neglect" a lack of awareness of everything to her left, including the left side of her body. The author is a neuroscientist and does a marvelous job of describing the condition from Sarah's point of view.
    • 3/5
      Digital Audiobook narrated by Sarah PaulsonA high-powered, “Type A” professional woman is excellent at her job and at juggling the demands of her children, her husband and her career. That is right up until the moment that she suffers a major brain injury in an auto accident and wakes with “left neglect.” This is a real neurological condition brought on by stroke or trauma, that results in the patient’s inability to recognize anything on the left. Patients suffering hemispacial neglect can see, walk, talk, but their brains ignore any signals from the left. As she has done for other neurological disorders, Genova crafts a compelling story that educates and entertains. I felt Sarah’s frustrations as she worked with occupational therapists to try to regain some of her lost functionality. I empathized with her inability to let go of the high expectations she set for herself. Her relationships with her husband, her mother, her children were all greatly affected by her changed circumstances. Something as “simple” as getting a Coke from the fridge became a complicated, frustrating and possibly dangerous adventure. I applaud Genova (and Sarah) for finding a little humor in some of these situations. I know a person with some aspects of this (result of a stroke). His stroke was several years ago, and he has long since stopped any physical or occupational therapy. His wife (and now the caretakers at the assisted living facility he calls home) turns his plate around for him or he’ll eat only what is on the right side, totally ignoring the left side of the plate. When she was still alive, his wife frequently reminded him to use his left hand. Reading this book has helped me understand a bit more about his condition. That being said, I thought the book was interesting and informative, but not as compelling as some of her other works. Sarah Paulson did a fine job performing the audiobook. She has good pacing and enough skill as a voice artist to different the various characters. I particularly liked how she voiced Sarah and her mother; the emotions behind their words really came out in her performance.
    • 5/5
      I purchased this book from Barnes and Noble to read with @diversebookclub. All opinions are my own. ?????Left Neglected by Lisa Genova. ? Sarah Nickerson is living the successful life as VP of HR for a huge corporation in Boston. Cramming 3 children, phone calls, meetings, dinner, and a husband into her 80 hour work week is how she thrives. Then on one rainy day her world comes to a complete stand still. As she learns to deal with a devastating brain injury her world changes to things that are more successful than an 80 hour work week. As a nurse I gobbled up every word on every page of this book and am truly glad I purchased this one instead of just grabbing it from the local library.????? Review also posted on Instagram @borensbooks, Goodreads/StacieBoren, Go Read, Amazon, Twitter @jason_stacie, and my blog at readsbystacie.com.
    • 5/5
      Hard-working supermom Claire gets into a car accident that leaves her with brain damage. She has a condition known as Left Neglect which means she is no longer aware of anything that's in the left side of her world.

      Very well-written.
    • 4/5
      I picked up this book as a fan of Jodi Picoult who is a fan. It features Sarah who has a frenetic life with a high-powered job as well as three children one of whom seems to be struggling at school. One day while driving to work her life changes forever in ways she could never have envisaged.

      Sarah is not a likeable person and I couldn't identify at all with someone who put her job before her family especially as she critises her own mother for being distant after a family tragedy when Sarah was young.

      I did find it interesting showing her efforts to regain her life but it is very simplistic and unrealistic at times. Highlighting a little known condition it reads at times like a real life account of a woman and her realisation that things have to change. I feel that there is so much more that could have been written and developed to show how her rehabilition works. Her husband is almost an afterthough and we never really learn much about him and how he copes

      The first few chapters have dream sequences which are confusing and add nothing to the story.

      The ending although good in some ways was rather rushed and contrived.

      What this book shows well is that we may think that we have our life all planned out but things can happen without warning which changes everything we think we know about ourself. As the saying goes 'Life is what happens when we're busy making plans'
    • 5/5
      Couldn’t sleep in the middle of the night so I got up and finished reading Left Neglected by Lisa Genova. Sarah Nickerson had a high level corporate job, putting in 80 hour days and her husband was super busy in his job too. They are both very intelligent and Harvard educated. She depended on multitasking to survive her busy schedule. The couple's together time was about nil due to her career and her three young children. She wanted so badly to be with them more and felt guilty about it She had a car accident, hydroplaned on the highway and ended up with right part of her brain missing. That is called Left Neglect. There was a secondary story about her relationship with her mother who she felt had abandoned her when her baby brother died. Her mother stayed alone in her room for years while Sarah longed for her mother's company. Left Neglect is a syndrome that even though your eyesight is still there your brain does not register that you are seeing the left side of the room, page, etc. The author said that President Woodrow Wilson had that when he had his stroke. Sarah went through the shock of not seeing anything on the left, of not knowing where her left arm or left was, unable to button her blouses, unable to see her children when they were on the left side of the room. What is that like? Lisa Genova studied this condition and then interviewed people with this condition before writing this story. That is why what Sarah feels, says and does seems so real.I highly recommend Left Neglect to everyone interested in brain injuries and brain syndromes and families.
    • 5/5
      I really did enjoy this book about Left Neglect, which is a really weird condition where people who have had a stroke or an accident where the head is hurt, switch off the Left side of everything! A really hard concept to get your head round! They are not blind and can be in good health but don't see the left side of anything, their own bodies, a room, just about everything.This is the story of Sarah Nickerson a high flying executive who doesn't have enough hours in the day, 3 children (one of which has ADHD) a husband and 2 motgages. She has a dreadful accident which leaves her with Left Negelct and she has to rebuild her life.It is a really good read, written with warmth and humour, I am still not sure I have my head round the condition, but is not so terribly rare!
    • 4/5
      An excellent book. Genova is a master. I loved Sarah and her family. But Sarah and her husband work too hard, too many hours, in order to live a certain lifestyle and raise their 3 small children. But they are working so hard they aren't enjoying their life. Then Sarah is in a car accident, and suffers a brain injury called Left Neglect. She is completely unaware of the left side of her body, the left side of a room, the left side of a page of print, the left side of her plate--to her brain, and to her "left" does not exist. As she did in Still Alice, Genova takes inside Sarah and her life to make us feel what she is feeling and experiencing. As you can imagine, this experience means huge life changes for this family, as they come to terms with Sarah's limitations, and she works hard to live with them.
    • 4/5
      This is a condition I have never heard of before. It's pretty scary that you can get a head injury and even though it's there, your body doesn't acknowledge the left side of anything. I already don't use my phone when driving for anything and this book makes me want to put my phone in the trunk when I'm driving so I'm not tempted at all. This was very well written and Lisa really pulled me into the story and into the lives of the characters. I highly recommend this book.
    • 4/5
      This novel introduced to me a medical condition I've never heard of before, left neglect. I tried to imagine not knowing what my left side is doing, not knowing if my hand is clutching something or waving or even still there. Everything should work, but the brain just doesn't process the left side.While interesting, this book didn't engage we quite as much as the others I've read by this author, especially Still Alice. The protagonist was stretched thin with family and career, but I didn't especially like her. She had more than a little hubris, and prided herself on multitasking. Wow, did that go wrong!There were heartfelt moments in the book, and some funny ones, too, although at the expense of Sarah. To me, though, I just couldn't connect with Sarah. She didn't have the depth I expected from one of Genova's characters. This is still a good book, but I liked both Still Alice and Inside the O'Briens better.I listened to an audio version of this novel, and the narrator is quite good.
    • 4/5
      After a horrific car accident, successful business woman and mother, Sarah Nickerson, suffers a brain injury known as Left Neglect where the patient's brain is unable to acknowledge or recognise the left-side of anything. Suddenly Sarah finds herself helpless, unable to feel the left-side of her body, read the left-side of a page or see anything on the left-side of the room. Fiercely independent before the accident, Sarah suddenly finds herself relying on others to do the most basic of tasks for her. I had never heard of Left Neglect before reading this book and I found Sarah to have a believable voice. I shared her fears, frustrations, small successes and fighting spirit. I can only imagine her heart-ache when she first realised everything she had lost and how terrifying that must have been. Gradually, however, Sarah learns to cope with her limitations and comes to appreciate what is really important in life. Sarah's mother is another great character. With her own fears and insecurities she steps in to become Sarah's personal nurse - dressing her, helping with Sarah's physio therapy, looking after the children and taking care of the general running of a busy household.

      My only negative would be that the build-up to the accident was a bit too long and the end came quickly, otherwise it was a fascinating read. I am becoming a real Genova fan. Can't wait for her next book.
    • 4/5
      This one really grabbed me. A supermom/wife/worker has her world turned upside down. So many things to which I could relate in this story. Very good.
    • 5/5
      Sarah, an executive, wife and mother of three, is on the executive treadmill when she is in a car accident. Suffering from a traumatic brain injury, she is discovered to be suffering LEFT NEGLECT. Her body does not register the left side of her body. Her rehabilitation is painstakingly slow. She reevaluates her relationships, her life and her well being and discovers what is really important. As in. I SIDE THE O'BRIENS, the author has taken an. Usual medical condition and researched it thoroughly, explaining and describing it to the reader through a fictionalized account of a person's experience with it.Great writing and touching story.