Book Review: "Hidden Valley Road" By Robert Koelker

Mental illness is a topic that needs to be discussed openly and honesty.

However, we need to be factual in noting that schizophrenia is not always a death sentence nor is it incorporating violence daily.

Nature v. Nurture is a topic for discussion as this family tries to cope with the disturbing sequence of events that occur upon them all.

The cognitive features need to be examined fully when discussing such an illness because schizophrenia not only affects men at a significantly higher rather than women but does so an earlier age with mind altering mental functions similar to alzheimer's disease and dementia.

With this noted the author does a good job in describing the characters, the setting, the atmosphere but focuses solely upon the violence and whether or not this is to sell books or entice readers I'm uncertain.

What can be noted is the discussion that will result because of this family's plight of terror and horror with the assistance of Oprah's Book Club. 

Upon reading this new work in its entirety I came across a few quotes that I'd like to leave here for you to ponder.

"What if the problem with Schizo patients wasn't that they lacked the ability to respond to so much stimuli, but that they lacked the ability not to?

What if they lacked the inhibition rather than over loaded brains?

Could isolation of a specific gene cause people to act out?

The idea that further research and DNA testing with gene mutation is also on board here.

Shank 2 Mutation of schizo gene found in all the brothers which was quite interesting genetically.

We may never know the full gene sequence but this book brings to mind the possibilities that may exist on the horizon and into the future.

Thank you to Bibliotheca for this e-read in exchange for this honest review.