A book with no segues.

I'm not sure if it's just Mark Vonnegut's style, or if this indicative of someone living with mental illness, but the writing had this staccato quality. Ideas jumped from one paragraph to the next. There would be sentences in the middle of paragraphs that didn't seem to connect to much around it.

It's kind of like the old-timey comedians whose routines were:
Set-up, Punchline, Laughter...Set-up, Punchline, Laughter... lather, rinse, repeat. Except this book isn't exactly funny. It was small anecdote, pithy sentence, small anecdote. All this is wrapped up in chapters that revolve around an event or idea.

That's not to say that there aren't great, quotable sentences in the book. I was just hoping for more of a narrative to the musings.

I'm always interested in diseases of the brain, insights into how that lump of gray matter functions, and particularly stories of how it can all go wrong. Things have gone wrong in Mark Vonnegut's brain - he's a highly intelligent guy who also happens to have bipolar disorder. He's suffered several major breakdowns, although not for years, and he also grew up in a weird, somewhat abusive family. And yet he's been able to become a practicing pediatrician, have a family, recover from alcoholism.

It's that recovery and coping I was most curious to read about. You do get a few insights into the doctor's life and coping mechanisms. Unfortunately, you also get long, multiple rants about the poor state of the US healthcare system, particularly insurance companies. You're preaching to the choir, Mark.

Funnily, those medical rants were the most coherent and well-strung together parts of the book.