Review by Twylla -- Bi-Polaroid by David Samuelson

[Twylla]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Bi-Polaroid" by David Samuelson.]

---

2 out of 4 stars

---

Share This Review

---

Bi-Polaroid by David Samuelson is like a scrapbook of creative writings that include one hundred five (105) poems, seventy-four (74) short stories or random paragraphs, four (4) short play scripts, six (6) random lists, six (6) letters, one (1) joke, one (1) diary entry, and one (1) memorandum. This book seems to be a chronological personal diary or log that describes feelings, experiences, and events in the life of a bipolar patient. It was probably written as a therapeutic exercise.

My favorite thing about this book is that the content seems realistic of someone who has personally experienced the difficulties of living with bipolar disorder. It is a rare opportunity to experience what bipolar disorder looks like from the inside. My favorite content of the book is “Twenty Things I Love To Do” on page 163. That is a happy list. The majority of the writings are poems. All of the poems are unstructured and free form. One of the poems, "Dave and Gail" was especially good. It demonstrates a strong support system in the home.

My least favorite thing about the book is that the individual writings are not connected to a theme or each other. It is a mash-up of random thoughts. Over half of the writings don’t have a descriptive title. In most of those cases, a date in various formats appears at the top of the page.

I selected this book specifically to learn more about bipolar disorder or a person with bipolar disorder. I tried to draw some conclusions about the content of the book by searching for words that represent common themes. Two of the more dominant themes of the writings are “depression” and “love”. There are twenty-five occurrences of different forms of the word “depress” (e.g., depress, depression, depressed). Depression appears to be a common occurrence in bipolar disorder. There are one hundred twenty-one (121) occurrences in the book for different forms of the word “love” (e.g., love, loved, loving, loves, lover). That leads me to believe that the author has a strong support system and feels loved.

I liked the idea of using a play script format with acts and scenes. The author should try to write a complete theatre play about living with bipolar disorder.

People can and do live well with mental illnesses. As people become more educated about mental illness, we will eventually overcome the stigma of having one. A few of the writings spoke to me, but because of the spelling, grammar, punctuation issues, and the disorganized state of the material, I am giving this book a rating of 2 out 4 stars. It needs more polished content and more meticulous editing.

******
Bi-Polaroid
View: on Bookshelves

[Ntokozo Joy Ndlovu]

I read through this book without fully understanding what I was reading. But for some reason, it all felt artistic and beautiful in all that confusion. I think your review clearly captured the beauty. Well done.