Against Medical Advice by James Patterson

James Patterson and Hal Friedman's Against Medical Advice is the first book my mom, Pat, will be reviewing here on Savvy Verse & Wit.

According to Amazon.com's Product Description:

Cory Friedman woke up one morning when he was five years old with the uncontrollable urge to twitch his neck. From that day forward his life became a hell of irrepressible tics and involuntary utterances, and Cory embarked on an excruciating journey from specialist to specialist to discover the cause of his disease. Soon it became unclear what tics were symptoms of his disease and what were side effects of the countless combinations of drugs. The only certainty is that it kept getting worse. Simply put: Cory Friedman's life was a living hell.

Against Medical Advice is the true story of Cory and his family's decades-long battle for survival in the face of extraordinary difficulties and a maddening medical establishment.

Without further ado, here's mom:

Patterson usually writes fiction, but this non-fiction work is well written. Patterson and Hal Friedman met at an advertising agency and both are writers. They took four years to write this true story about Hal's son, Cory, who has Tourettes Syndrome. One symptom of the ailment is body ticks. After a variety of medical treatments and medications, symptoms were not alleviated and lead to Cory's over-eating and weight gain.

Cory, an athlete in school, eventually gets into trouble with the "wrong" crowd. Alcohol consumption exacerbates Cory's medical problems and things spiraled out of control for him. After a number of treatment facilities, Cory is sent to a wilderness camp to help him cope with his ailment.

This is a story of one family's struggles with a disease that is hard to treat and deal with, and about how this struggle impacted them. I would recommend this book to James Patterson fans and would consider this among his best books. I consider this as a 5-star book.

Thanks mom for your review of James Patterson's Against Medical Advice.

Pat is an avid James Patterson reader and loves to follow his latest novels. I even thanked James Patterson in person for getting my mom to read. She didn't read much when I was growing up, at least from what I can remember. Now, if we could only get dad to start reading.

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