"The Day My Brain Exploded: A True Story" Ashok Rajamani

I usually have 3 or 4 books going at the same time, and it happened that I finished three of my current books within a couple of days of each other.  This was the last of the three to be started and the first to be finished.

"Exploded" is a LibraryThing Early Reviewers book.  The way that works is that readers choose books they are interested in and LibraryThing chooses from that list books that you know something about because of the contents of your library.  This book indicates that my library contains memoirs, books on health and medicine and stories of first-generation Americans.

Ashok Rajamani suffers a brain aneurysm on the day of his brother's wedding.  The aneurysm was the result of a congenital defect called an AVM, or arteriovenous malformation.  Ashok survives the ordeal, including open-brain surgery and meningitis, only to have to begin his life again, relearning everything.

Told with great humor and in a non-linear fashion, we go back and forth between life before the aneurysm to life after.  Ashok and his brother grow up in a suburb of Chicago with very few other children of color or children of non-Christian families.  He talks of clashes with his Christian schoolmates and loneliness.  He dreams of going to New York, and moves there for college.  After a family trip, he returns to New York after 9-11 to find he is less welcome there because of his skin color.

Much of the story is about his relationship with his father, mother and brother.  Although they all stand by Ashok during the initial hospitalization and afterward, they do so in ways that he doesn't understand at first.  Their relationships change as Ashok struggles with all aspect of his life.

He shares many anecdotes of living with partial blindness and his other health issues, and the most touching are the stories of his participation in a support group for people with brain injuries.  The medical professionals he has consulted are a cast of characters both heart warming and frightening.  It seems that many of the health problems he has are not fully understood, and he spends a lot of time shopping for doctors that will help him and explain what is going on, instead of doctors who continue to say that to solve his problems they'll need to open up his skull again.

I read parts of the book to He-who-caters-to-my-every-whim in the car while he was driving, an indication of the books readability and humor.  Two nights ago I decided that "Exploded" was worth being tired the next day and stayed up to finish it, sacrificing good sleep hygiene to see where the story went.  Another recommendation for the book.  This book will go on the shelf for reading again in the future.