Tell Me Everything You Don't Remember: The Stroke That Changed My Life

by Christine Hyung-Oak Lee

A memoir of reinvention after a stroke at age thirty-three.

Christine Hyung-Oak Lee woke up with a headache on the morning of December 31, 2006. By that afternoon, she saw the world—quite literally—upside down. By New Year’s Day, she was unable to form a coherent sentence. And after hours in the ER, days in the hospital, and multiple questions and tests, her doctors informed her that she had had a stroke. 

For months afterward, Lee outsourced her memories to a journal, taking diligent notes to compensate for the thoughts she could no longer hold on to. It is from these notes that she has constructed this frank and compelling memoir.

In a precise and captivating narrative, Lee navigates fearlessly between chronologies, weaving her childhood humiliations and joys together with the story of the early days of her marriage; and then later, in painstaking, painful, and unflinching detail, the account of her stroke and every upset—temporary or permanent—that it caused. 

Lee illuminates the connection between memory and identity in an honest, meditative, and truly funny manner, utterly devoid of self-pity. And as she recovers, she begins to realize that this unexpected and devastating event has provided a catalyst for coming to terms with her true self—and, in a way, has allowed her to become the person she’s always wanted to be.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Medical, Biography Memoir, Audiobook, Disability, Health

277 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 14, 2017

About the author

On TELL ME EVERYTHING YOU DON'T REMEMBER:
“A brave, encouraging, genuine work of healing discovery that shows us the ordinary, daily effort it takes to make a shattered self cohere.” (Floyd Skloot, author of In the Shadow of Memory)

Christine Hyung-Oak Lee has a memoir (TELL ME EVERYTHING YOU DON’T REMEMBER–February 14, 2017) and a novel (GOLEM OF SEOUL 2018), both forthcoming from Ecco / Harper Collins. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in journals and anthologies such as ZYZZYVA, Guernica, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Hyphen Magazine, BuzzFeed, and Men Undressed.

Born in New York City, Christine earned her undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley and her MFA at Mills College. She has been awarded a residency at Hedgebrook, and her pieces have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and placed in competitions such as the Poets and Writers’ Magazine Writers Exchange Contest, Glimmer Train Fiction Open, and others.

Reviews

[Roxane · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are beautiful turns of phrase throughout this memoir. The structure is fascinating and at times unpredictable, much like memory. There is a lot to admire here in a very moving narrative about what it's like to have to re-learn living in the prime of your life.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

(2.5) “How odd, memory. How useless, memory. How bendable. How breakable. How invented. How lost.” Lee had a stroke in early 2007 and took years to fully recuperate from it, also requiring surgery to close the congenital hole in her heart that was releasing blood clots into her brain. Recovery was a particular challenge because to everyone she looked normal; “I appeared to be well but was not well.” The stroke turned her from an energetic extrovert into a fearful, irritable person who needed solitude and regular rest.

I generally love illness narratives, but this one is somewhat let down by the writing. A fundamental dearth of structure is buried under run-on sentences, repetition (a few repeats of Vonnegut’s “So it goes” would be okay, but not 12) and time shifts. The closest comparison I can make is with Su Meck’s I Forgot to Remember: the author’s illness and subsequent memory problems are part of the issue – though Meck had a co-author’s help with shaping a chronological memoir. It is also unfortunate that Lee hints at but cannot fully incorporate other traumas that preceded and followed the stroke: a rape, adultery, and a divorce after 15 years of marriage to the man who did his best to help her through her recovery. She ends on the birth of her daughter, wielded as symbolic proof that her body had finally fixed itself. Releases February 14th.

[On this evidence I doubt I’ll take a look at the author’s novel currently in the pipeline.]

[Angela Micheletti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each time I read a memoir, I get the same feeling. I begin the book paying special attention to the writer’s style and cadence and structure. I turn page after page, bouncing between enjoying the story and analyzing it in comparison to my own. This book had it’s moments. Moments of beauty in the fragmented thoughts, where as a writer myself, I realized; as disjointed and foggy and repetitive as this story became at times, there was still beauty in it. It was still a story, filled with lessons, sorrow and as much despair as there was hope, you just had to be patient. It was a story worth telling. That is the question I have asked myself no less than a dozen times as I’ve tried to write my own story. Is this story worth telling? One scene in the book leads me to believe that it is. When Christine attended VONA in 2008, less than two years after her stroke her instructor asked the class to write something deeply personal about themselves. When she balks at the idea, her teacher asks her, “Then why are you a writer?”

I didn’t actually read that scene, as I was listening to this portion of the book on Audible as I walked to the bus that would take me home for the day. Amongst a half dozen construction workers, standing on the same corner of 9th and Olive, waiting for the crosswalk to signal us to walk forward, I took a few steps backwards. My backpack collided with a street lamp as I took my phone out of my jacket pocket and fumbled to find the words on the page. "Then why are you a writer?" I stared at them. Taking that question into my brain, I once again felt that feeling. It was the old familiar feeling that I always have when I think about finally getting serious about writing my story. I felt hope, because I am a writer. Words and expression and my story are at the core of my soul, and for that, I don’t get to be private. I must share my truth. I must be brave.

[Dona's Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pre-Read Notes:

I love a well-done medical memoire, and so far this is extremely well done.

"I lacked the courage at the time to tell my parents what it was I really wanted to do. And so I created an obstacle instead. And life gave me an obstacle in return. Which made me the writer I became." p88

Final Review

(thoughts & recs) The first half of this book is absolutely brilliant, but the second half lags. It's the form that does it, though it is very clever, as the author organizes her delivery to mimic some of the cognitive states she experienced-- untethered in time, not clear on the destination, etc. Again, clever and creative, but challenging.

I recommend this one to fans of medical nonfiction, medical memoir, nonfiction with experimental form, or literary memoir. It quite reminds me of NOX by Anne Carson, another memoir with an experimental form that dominates the narrative.

My Favorite Things:

✔️ "My childhood stories became lessons. In this way my life had prepared me for such an emergency. It had taught me to anticipate hardship, to push through pain, to wage battle. But my stroke would teach me things too, among them the value of taking a break from the unending pressure to be perfect." p70 This is such a wild way to look at early childhood stress, as pretraining for life's bullying. I don't altogether agree, but the mindset empowers this writer and I'm happy for that.

✔️ This is such a powerful book because of the form. The author wrote this memoir from within the clarity of recovery, but she wrote *everything* down during the time her cognition was outside of her control. It's a testament to a disabled humans ability to create a more accessible life for themselves.

✔️"The mind will make up stories for the body’s deficits. The mind will say her body is a failure. The mind will favor the brain. The mind will fault the body for the stroke, of which the brain has become the victim. The mind, without the brain, will finally have to learn to forgive the body." p74

✔️ The form is extremely clever but creates clarity issues. It's hard to find oneself in the span of the narrative, which I think is meant to mirror how the author struggled to find herself in time after she had her stroke.

Notes:

1. content warnings: stroke, disability, cognitive impairment, impaired memory, divorce, death of parent, caretaking, invisible illness, internalized ableism, disordered eating, extreme weight loss, ED, calorie restriction, derealization, SA, gr-pe (detailed description),

2. "And so my brother and I were raised to survive wars. It was the thesis statement of our upbringing. People who couldn’t walk, who sat down and cried—they died." This attitude represents the author's internalized ableism. People should not have to die because they cannot walk or have trouble containing emotions. If they do die for those reasons, it's a reflection of a cold-hearted society, not irresponsibility on the part of disabled people.

I found an audiobook copy of TELL ME EVERYTHING YOU DONT REMEMBER by Christine Hyung-Oak Lee in Libby.

[L. Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spent the better part of two years reading contemporary memoirs by people who experienced trauma and loss and had the courage to write about it. Not many autobiographers are honest and skilled enough to bring the reader into their inner circle, but Christine Hyung-Oak Lee does that in spades. I found her memoir so compelling that I finished it in two sittings--and wanted to demand a sequel about PPD.

Other reviewers complained that Lee returns again and again to accounts of the same events, but I didn't find this cause for complaint. Rather, such returns bring the reader into Lee's own intimate experience of traumatic injury. "Trauma is never forgotten," she explains, and "Remembering trauma is to feel that trauma all over again." This is precisely true.

Finally, I liked that Kurt Vonnegut was, in a sense, Lee's mentor and even muse throughout the book. The way she wrote about not reading, yet reading, Slaughterhouse Five was brilliant. What better guardian angel can one have than a fellow writer during desperate times?

[Lynnette · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good story to tell, and I admire the writer for all she's accomplished post life-changing stroke, but I tired quickly of the narrator's repetitive style and remix of the same stories over and over and over, muddling the chronology and regurgitating the events so that I found myself complaining she's told me this before, yet missing details that she wedged in between that maybe I hadn't heard before. Like who the heck is Mr. Paddington? It's almost as if the narrator needed more words to fill her book so everything circled around and around. Whether that's a product of her stroke or her writing style, I don't know, but I found reading this book tedious.

[Hsien Lei · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than just a book about stroke and how it can ravage your mind and body. Christine uses the crisis as a way to tell her story growing up as an Asian-American. Yes, she might have gone into more details on the other traumas she faced in her life but those are better saved for future stories. In this story, she did the right thing by staying focused on the stroke and contextualizing it with the power of memories.

[Erika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Memoirs are usually about a person’s life or experience. This one made me feel like I was right in the center of it all with the author. I got to experience every single bit of ugliness, without the negativity scrubbed away, and therefore resonated with complete clarity. Fascinating, factual, and emotional all wrapped up in one big astounding ball.

[alyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gorgeous book.

Picked up in an attempt to empathize with my dad as he continues to recover from a rare brain aneurysm type event. Finished in tears because this book is about more than recovering from a brain injury. It's about the ongoing emotional recovery we trudge against throughout our whole lives (—yes, until death). How the work we must do to mend what has been broken is fucked up, scary, and perhaps more painful than even the root of the trauma itself. And we don't always feel like we're moving forward, and maybe we're not for a while, but somehow we are. Incredibly, our psyche has as much plasticity as the organ called the brain.

"I know that everything is temporary and hard to hold, and even the permanent is only for this lifetime. That the poem Justin wrote for my newborn daughter on a piece of paper will eventually yellow and crisp. That all the secret family recipes of the world will disappear unless we share them. That all this value and love and honor and pain is useless until we share it with others, so that they too can hold it in their hands for a split second before the dust runs through their fingers."

"One of the first written correspondences I'd had with Adam revolved around my philosophy of love and relationships; I said I wanted someone I could take care of, and someone who would take care of me in return. To be enamored of someone completely and ignore myself, because that someone would be enamored of me. I was twenty-one years old when I shared this, and I was mistaken.
I relied on Adam to take care of me, because I would not take care of myself. This dependency caused immeasurable strain for years to come. To rely on someone to take care of me meant to have my needs defined by someone else, that I didn't prioritize my needs, that my partner had to anticipate my needs. It meant exhaustion, meant resentment.
It was something that had to change.
That change took a long time."

"PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder, is a result of avoidance.
I thought that the only way I could see my stroke was to distance myself so that I could see it in its entirety. So I detached from the event. It was, I thought, something that had happened. I put my stroke into a box in a basement. I wanted it to stay there.
Time to, I thought, move forward.
(...)
I wanted everything like it was before. It had happened. I thought it was no longer happening.
In avoiding the thing, I could not avoid it."

"Remembering trauma is to feel that trauma all over again. I thought I had to have distance to see the thing as a whole, and so I tried my best to divorce myself from the event and to put it behind me—but I learned that trauma is not a separate thing, it is an experience that folded itself into my body and mind and brain. I had to hold it close, sit with it in discomfort and pain, and not push it away. It took a while to learn this."

Oh, here's a funny one:

"My mother would point out a hill topped with snow. And there would be a moment where we would take a sharp inhale at its beauty. This would be followed by my mother's announcement, "Looks like bird poop. So beautiful."

[Whitney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised how much this book touched me. It is about a woman that survived a stroke but her path to recovery was so familiar that the book ended up being hyper emotional for me. It's amazing the lessons trauma teaches are so interwoven no matter the circumstances. Lessons on how to survive with change in life, in your identity, in relationships (new and old) and how to make sense of it all when it seems so nonsensical. There were some definite nuggets of wisdom. IF you're in recovery, have PTSD, have been through a terminal illness, or some kind of traumatic experience, I think you will appreciate this quick read. The way she structured the book at first bothered me because it was almost as if she wasn't fully recovered but by halfway I understood why she was flipping back and forth through periods of time and was enthralled by the change of pattern. I also have come to believe that recovering from a stroke is more than a little like what it is like just living as your average introvert and if you love an introvert but don't understand her or him, you should also definitely read this book.
It is one of those reads that was simple but poignant and something I am sure to think back to often, for the rest of my life now. ❤

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to this on audible and ended up returning it. It is a book about invisible illness really, and as a chronic migraine sufferer (with lots of neurological symptoms) the content itself was giving me panic attacks, but generally I just didn't like the tone of the book. It didn't read (to me via the voice actor) as a book about triumphing after stroke- which she did-, but felt very whiney... I hate to say that, because I know this is one of the things she talks about worrying about and one of the things that people with invisible illness fear in general. Perhaps it was the voice actor that I didn't care for. I might have taken it differently had I read it with my own inner voice.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Repetitive and rambling-- perhaps, intentionally in order to mimic her thinking after the stroke? Whether it was intentional or not, it only served to irritate me. It would've been much more powerful as a longform article.

[Tasha (Amaysn Reads) · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story was very compelling and the events were downright frightening. But I felt the book was overwritten and there were so many times when her "prose" were a bit much, that I literally rolled my eyes. I listened to this on audiobook and I don't recommend it. The narrator may have something to do with the enjoyment of the book. She was a little melodramatic in my opinion. I enjoyed the medical portions of the book because those were concise and not redundant. Overall, I would recommend this book but in physical form only.

[Pancha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a harrowing read because it took her so long to get medical treatment after the stroke, because she is so blunt about laying bare her thoughts about herself, because her invisible illness sometimes reminded me of mine. I actually recognize some of her post-stroke symptoms as amped up versions of my own neurological experiences.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I memoir written by a woman who, in her early 30s, had a stroke. The stroke wiped out her memory. This book is her account of her slow recovery. I found it fascinating. It's amazing what the brain is capable of.

[Charity P. · Rating 2 out of 5]

ethical dilemma--do i have to like a book because of what the author has struggled through which enables her to write a memoir?

[Sarah Hopkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is quite captivating in the intensity of this lady's account of a somewhat subtle yet devastating stroke which causes her to have mainly cognitive issues and some balance challenge, it seems.
She relays her recovery in terms of the return of her abilities in relation to her love for literature. Initially her stroke event goes almost unnoticed amid the series of migraines she suffers and is only detected after a delay and due to her word finding difficulties and jumbled word salad talk - she cannot think of the name for a high frequency word item, that being eggs, and so describes them in the only way she can access as "shell bells."
As she continues to not make sense she ends up visiting hospital where a memory assessment points to a short term memory lapse. She goes on to realise that with the book that she had been enjoying the reading of she has been rereading the same line repeatedly without realising. After 6 months she is able to read a short story and by 18 months feels that she has 80% of her abilities restored, being able to read a story and write a short story.
It is revealed that she has had a stroke in the dorsomedial thalamic nucleus only through her having an MRI scan and this then being examined. Scans which when repeated at intervals eventually capture a near complete brain recovery. She sites this recovery as being due to her writing; she found a way to her new self through journaling her own narrative account.
This book is both her achievement and evidence of her rehabilitation.
Her comparative examples are full of imagery; the plasticity of her brain reforming and reshaping is like the plasticity in nature with her example of the regrowth of the pine forest from forest fires. There is an intensity to this in that the house she lives in neighbours the house for where they stopped in 1991 during her studies at college which she eventually resumes residency in post stroke.
She includes some zippy quotes like "neurons that fire together wire together" (Hebb's rule) and ideas from eminent professionals. She quotes ideas from Freud, Norman Doidge, Marcos Frank, Professor Robert White (a neuroscientist). The latter applies the image of a sprinkler system revitalising the arid patches of lawn to the refiring and reactivating of dying parts of the brain. There is also the image of a UNIX system of messages being passed and rerouted. She describes different types of memory (chapter 5) that she experiences losses and values gains in in such a way that it is relatable to roles in an office and to an encyclopaedia system, for instance.
It emerges that she has an apparent whole in her heart, previously undiscovered, that has been at the root of her early entrance into a stroke recovery pathway at age just 33.
When this is repaired she feels 80% recovered; she can read a short story, write longer blog posts, assemble a peanut butter and jello sandwich, co-ordinate an outfit and choose something other than a hamburger off a restaurant menu (it appears her sense of the subtleties of different tastes was muddled for a time too). This is 6 months post stroke and she feels functional to survive into the future at this point. However what she wants she states is to not merely survive but to thrive and this resonates with the tone of her ambitious intentions. Her goals carry her forward. She talks of early occupational therapy sessions where she would be set a task to buy several items from the hospital shop and try to retain a recall of what she had purchased and of her memory then building up in stages from 15 minutes to an hour to half a day. She talks of learning skills of prioritising and pacing herself, balancing activity with rest. Five years post stroke she is teaching at a community college.
Similar to Vilfredo Pareto's 80/20 principle of the fortunes of land occupation she feels that the last 20% of her recovery will present the greatest challenge. She talks of going from a definition of capacity in relation to the constraints of time to when, at the time of her stroke, she feels that since memory depends on time that without the capacity to remember time the concept of time becomes meaningless and then on to later on in her recovery when capacity is defined by energy levels; instead of "I don't have time" she moves to "I don't have energy." This final portion of recovery she describes as about becoming a whole person, development of body, heart and mind. She begins to listen more to her body, having made gains with her mind, and makes use of yoga.
To feel a resolution to the book I feel it is necessary to read the acknowledgements at the end as the final chapter is somewhat laid out in very brief modules of moments relating to the birth of her daughter, whose development she compares to her own neural recovery. She also contrasts the recovery timescale of her father's stoke which follows hers in 2007 by about five years. He also loses abilities in relation to language, being unable to speak initially though regaining this later. He also struggles with swallowing and uses straws for a year and is likely to use a cane to supplement his reduced mobility for the rest of his life, being more physically affected than his younger daughter whose losses are more influential on functional accomplishment, resulting in her avoidance of cookery for a year due to culinary disasters due to not keeping track of and be able to sequence the task at hand.
Her love of literature permeates her account with her own writing efforts and references to novels like F Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," Eleanor H Porter's "Polyanna," Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five" with the latter being quoted frequently as she reads this book through her recovery having commenced it before her stroke began. "The language of my stroke is forever in my brain" she states poignantly and it is clear that this experience has made a mark which will forever remain for her but that she is a lady determined to look to the future with her daughter in arms.

[Sara Strand · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to tell you that I identified with this so much that my book pages are literally bent on so many corners and I have notes all over it on post it notes so I could go back and remember something poignant. I feel like the biggest hurdle in my recovery is dealing with other people, everyone wants you to just be better because then they are off the hook with being nice, going the extra mile, caring, whatever. It's like, "Oh, she's not sick anymore, thank god!" and I'm standing here like, "Yes, yes I am. I am just really good at faking it so I don't feel stupid and you don't feel obligated." But as I read this book, Christine gets it.

I don't remember much of anything from the day before I gave birth until sometime at the end of October. Everything since October is spotty at best but I'm able to fake it every day. The great thing is that everyone who interacted with me, particularly early on, all confirm that I had no idea and I really was like Dory from Finding Nemo, and I was argumentative, at one point convinced Matt was out to get me and lock me up in the loony bin. On page 44 she writes,

"But in those first few weeks I was lost without knowing I was lost. I was searching with a deep belief that all would be well, not out of resilience or hope but out of ignorant bliss. I was in a hospital room, sheltered from the world, where nurses and doctors protected me from overstimulation, where everything happened on schedule, and where the blank white wall was not an acre of boredom but of great comfort. My world was that room, and in that room my struggles had little measured impact."

God yes. I don't remember much but what I do remember of my hospital stay are quick snippets, like snapshots, and in every single one of them I have a feeling of safety and security, a feeling that I didn't want to go home but of course I couldn't really place why. Her book chronicles first visitors who are at first buoyed by how great she looks, how she doesn't look sick but are quick to realize that things aren't right, the memory isn't there and basically that she didn't know what she didn't know.

And that's the way I describe those first months, I didn't know what I didn't know. I frequently say I don't know if I'm actually getting worse or if I'm just realizing how bad things were and still are.

I also have had to confront how much I hate medical attention. I am very much the non-complainer. I have been to the doctor more times in the last two months than I had been from the ages of 16-34. Easily. And that counts during my previous pregnancies. I am very much that person who will not go to the doctor unless there is a damn good chance I'm terminal. Same with my kids. Ear ache? You aren't going to die. We are not going to be the people who become immune to anti-biotics. So the entire concept of going to the doctor to fix myself is a difficult adjustment. On page 146 she writes,

"It felt strange, actually, to pick up the phone. It felt completely self-indulgent to ask for medical attention. I was still so afraid of showing vulnerability. To say 'something is wrong' was to say something in my body was failing was to say I needed someone was to say I deserved help. I did not think I deserved help."

Preach it, sister.

There is also a passage where I re-read it so many times because I felt like it highlights my time now, battling depression and anxiety, reeling with being someone with PTSD and how people laugh at that because it's not like I went to war or anything. But I've learned that dying in any kind of way is terrifying, and nobody comes back unscathed. Christine writes on page 205,

"..I knew the last mile is the hardest. It is the mile you often travel on your own. Where you must go outside your comfort zone. Where coping is finding a new way to do the old things. Your doctors are no longer there, your friends think you are fine, and you are functional enough to not elicit any sympathy."

And god, I'm there. I'm so there.

She also writes, on page 235,

"I felt no one wanted to talk about it - not my cadre of healthy friends, anyway. When I said, "I can't remember-ever since the stroke, I can't remember little things," they told me they could not remember things, either. That it was old age, that it was their recreational marijuana use, that it was exhaustion, that it was normal. Not the stroke."

God, YES. I swear to you, if I hear someone tell me this is normal one more time, I'm likely to lose it. You'll see me on the Today Show as the woman who lost her shit in a grocery store or at after school kid pick up. I'm not saying I can't remember things to elicit sympathy, I'm stating a fact. I'm letting you know that this is still a problem, and it's not normal. None of what I am dealing with is normal. You might have hormone problems, but you don't have them from having your pituitary gland shot during the course of bleeding to death while stroking out. It's different. Everything about me is different and special but it all sucks.

So yes. This book. This book was EVERYTHING that I needed right now. I didn't even know I needed it. I wish I could just hug this woman because this book feels like a life preserver for me right now. I cannot recommend this highly enough, it should be a mandatory read for any stroke survivor.

[Matthew Rabishaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reminds me that no matter how a person looks or is acting on the outside it’s truly hard to recognize what’s happening on the inside. Also reminds me that strokes are a bitch.

[Ericka Lutz · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a young writer who relies on memory and words for her very existence, what can be more devastating than losing both?

In Tell Me Everything You Don't Remember, Christine Hyung-Oak Lee has written a brilliant and moving memoir about her stroke at the age of 33, and how she recreated her life.

The child of war-surviving immigrants from Korea, Lee details forced marches in the San Gabriel Mountains of Southern California as her parents trained her in fortitude and how to survive war. She learned the power of language under duress: locked in a preschool bathroom stall for days because she couldn't speak English.

Lee is fierce with herself, and honest, writing about her early bouts with depression and self-harm, her soul-sacrificing love affair with her husband, the tragic death of her estranged mother-in-law, the triumphant birth of her daughter after 13 years of infertility, and her subsequent postpartum depression. Lee writes with great generosity about her (now ex) husband in his caregiving and all-too-human failings, and how the stroke catalyzed the end of her marriage. She writes about finding new love in a surprising place.

But the most harrowing and informative parts of the book detail the stroke and recovery itself. Lee details the sensory confusion, the almost complete loss of short-term memory, the stripping away of social filters that left her raging or weeping in public. She grounds her experience in easily understandable explanations of brain function and memory itself.

Lee's writing is lyrical but never sentimental. She chooses each word as if walking carefully down a long staircase, the language itself leading and healing her damaged brain. Lee's slow recovery back to herself—a truer self – feels earned and triumphant.

Tell Me Everything You Don't Remember truly becomes a journey of healing – for Lee, and for the reader.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review can be found at:
https://finallytimetoread.blogspot.com/

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now another favorite book, of the memoir genre, of mine . Great account of a 33 year old asian woman having a stroke due to a PFO. Very relevant to me because, had a relative with a stroke, due to PFO at age 43. Another relative parents are Asian immigrants and find it relavant, the racist comments made, due to present political Trump atmosphere of anti- immigrant and building walls to keep people out. Never would agree to building walls, this country is a country full of immigrants. Times are changing and I believe globalization will increase understanding and peace and decrease wars. But there are those who believe wars strenghten a nations economy. Lastly the story is relevant to me, due to a friend and neighbor having short term memory from traumatic brain injury. The author details how her day to day life is effected by short term memory loss. Gives me patience and understanding for all who may suffer short term memory loss, due from stroke, traumatic brain injury as well as post traumatic stress disorder. Amazing the author can write so well after such a tragedy. Great story of perseverance to overcome adversity.

[Giuliana Guarna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall I really enjoyed this book. As a future doctor in training, I appreciate the author's illustrations of how medical news and unexpected medical events can rip your life apart. It is valuable insight that I will be able to carry forward and use to be a more sensitive and caring physician.

The book has quite a unique writing style. Sometimes very serious and sometimes moves far way from writing convention. I think it worked for this novel, though at times I find it quite odd to read.

Overall, the book could've been about 4 chapters shorter and I wouldn't have missed much as I found it was a little repetitive.

[S.D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir is about more than the author's stroke recovery. It is a brave look back to her childhood and the life of immigrants shaped by war; it is a brave look into her own traumatic experiences as a student, a writer, a wife, a mother. Everything informs her recovery. The ending beautifully climaxes to a conclusion that leaves the reader satisfied. What more to tell? Our lives are made in moments, and the author takes all of that pain and joy, and leaves her heart on the page. I highly recommend this to anyone needing an inspirational and informative read.

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't imagine it's not very often we get a well-written descriptive account of brain injury from the person who had the injury, but that's what Lee has given us. It's an interesting perspective into the mysteries of the brain, of living with memory loss and other problems. Lee is a very articulate survivor of a stroke at the age of 33. Very much enjoyed following her journey from the time the stroke happened until her recovery.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was spoiled by the reading, I think. I didn't particularly care for the organization of this book either. Too much jumping around with her husband and divorce, years in college, weight etc. I would have been more interested in the heart issue that turned out to have affected her whole life but it was kind of a buried lead instead of the major aha moment that it should have been. I like stories of survival and memoirs but this one left me a bit cold.

[Pam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Usually I like books like this one. I learned several things about strokes and the brain. I like the writing style. Unfortunately, I found the prose repetitive. The author explains how she can not remember things because of her stroke, so she writes things down in a journal Yet, she repeats a lot of things in the book. Was that for her benefit, because it did nothing for the reader.

[Sri Sarnath · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to couple of minutes of Christine's interview on the radio made me get this book. This is a riveting book. Talks about her struggles, perseverance and puts things in perspective. There is quite some repetition but it is not at all a big deal when you become part of her past, present and future!

[Lori Norman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating look inside the experience of having a stroke and slowly, ever so slowly recovering from it. Christine Hyung-Oak Lee shares her story along with the science behind what she lived, giving us a gut-punching vicarious experience along with a mind-expanding understanding of our own brains and how they work.

[Erin Rundio · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the story, especially the progression after the stroke. The writing style was not my favorite, with the prolonged sentences and repetition of details-read more like running thoughts than a memoir- but to each his own. I admire Christine's integrity, specifically when discussing intimate relationship details and her PPD.