A Great Place for a Seizure - Terry Tracy

[review on request]
A GREAT PLACE FOR A SEIZURE


AUTHOR - Terry Tracy

SYNOPSIS - Mischa Dunn's family flees Chile in the aftermath of the 1973 coup d'etat that installs a military dictatorship. After settling into life in the United States, at the age of fourteen, Mischa begins to have unexplained seizures. Diagnosed with epilepsy, she faces an uncertain life. With an engaging balance of humor, insight, and sensitivity Mischa's story takes the reader across three continents, over thirty years.

EXCERPT - “I liked him in The Philadelphia Story,” Curtis observed coolly.
“Yeah, I can see why. He had a bit of that Clark Gable personality from It Happened, that sort of rapid-fire response that you like so much.”
“In that story, Katharine Hepburn was a little like you.” He took another bit of butter and moved his knife toward the roll.
“How is that?” Mischa’s voice flirted. She was flattered.
“She tells Jimmy Stewart that she loves him while she’s drunk and walking in the moonlight. The next day she drops him.”

FL Speaks - This is the story of Mischa Dunn. She is 14 and that's when her seizures starts. Epilepsy. Epilepsy didn't change her life as much as it changed the people around her. Her parents grew distant and witnesses to her seizures more afraid of her to even help her up. Very soon into the story, the author makes it clear that this is not going to be just another survival story or even a self-help one. This is a story about a normal girl who is determined to show everyone around her that epilepsy is not a disability and she is still normal.

The novel is spread around her entire life and hence some chapter jumps are in months or even years. Hence, the need for constant new characters. Mischa is someone whom you would love to meet and love to love. Specially when she's with her friend Sophie and i believe they are both crazy. The correct term being - loco. At one incident regarding those two, i laughed so hard that Mom came running up to my room to check on me. Mischa's sarcasm and comic timing makes reading about her more fun. You realise that soon instead of pitying her, you start to be actually proud of her.

Tracy's narration is brilliant. The book banks on more narration than actual conversations and you do not feel the need for action as she guides you from one incident to another. The later half of the novel introduces Hector as a permanent character in the plot. It is at around this time, that her sarcasm and wit is slowly replaced by rage and helplessness. Well, that's actually in the last few chapters. You can feel her elation as she jumps from single to committed to married to motherhood. This brook opens up the world of epilepsy in a whole new way to me mainly because i have never seen someone with one.

The book will tug your heart's strings with the simplest of actions, it will make you see life through they eyes of Mischa and revel in wonder at her awkward yet pleasant ways. It will show you that kindness is not the same as compassion and the world's most cruel man can also be the most compassionate. (This was one of my favorite chapters in the book. Though the rest of the philosophy went straight over my head and i had to re-read it again. Blame Coelho for being boring to me) The ending just killed me. Almost. Honestly saying, i was in no-way ready to handle that. But its endings like this that stops the book from being good and makes them great.

So the main question remains. Do you let Epilepsy define you, stop you or scare you from your destiny and your own choices in life?? Or do you go Mischa's way and accept it as a challenge and a part of her that makes her special in her own way. The answer reveals itself to you as you read this book.

A stellar job by Terry Tracy. Poignant and Spell-binding. A must-read!

I would like to thank Terry Tracy for contacting us to review her novel. It had been an exhilarating ride with Mischa Dunn.

My Rating - 4.5 stars. For being an awesome read and for opening a door to a different world.

PRICE - NA [$ 2.14 for Kindle at Amazon]