Rating: 
Summary: A Perplexing Novel
Review: I originally read a copy from England, surprisingly, it had a different title, "Spasm: A Memoir With Lies." Needless to say, I was intrigued by the title & read it right away. Without going into much detail about how this book changed me in a way I cannot formulate, I would like to point out that it does address important questions regarding what we accept as our Reality vs. our Genuine Experience of Reality. For me, because Slater includes all the lies (or truths) we tell ourselves daily, it was one of the most honest, insightful, artistic and perplexing memoirs I have read.
Rating:
Summary: A Perplexing Novel
Review: I originally read a copy from England, surprisingly, it had a different title, "Spasm: A Memoir With Lies." Needless to say, I was intrigued by the title & read it right away. Without going into much detail about how this book changed me in a way I cannot formulate, I would like to point out that it does address important questions regarding what we accept as our Reality vs. our Genuine Experience of Reality. For me, because Slater includes all the lies (or truths) we tell ourselves daily, it was one of the most honest, insightful, artistic and perplexing memoirs I have read.
Rating:
Summary: Remembering Metaphorical
Review: I truly loved this book, I found it both profound and in a very odd way honest. The title tells you what to expect, "A Metaphorical Memoir". This is not a story about facts, which facts are true, and which are not, this is irrelevant. The honesty is in the human experience of this woman, that she is indeed lost somewhere in the gray matter of life, and what that constant state of "seizure" is like for her. This book is not for the person who takes everything literal, but if you are able to see her in the fictions and truths that she shares, without knowing which is which, the point of the book will not be lost to you.
Rating: 
Summary: Trust your instincts when you read this book.
Review: Is this a coming of age with epilepsy story?Or is it a coming of age with Munchausen's story? Or is it a stunning example of postmodern fiction, which is neither of the above but written simply to mess with our minds? [I vote for the latter.] Whether you believe this is fiction or nonfiction, you are certain to have a strong reaction to the protagonist. I am a certified medical transcriptionist with 18 years of experience in acute care hospital work. Over the years, through both my work and my voracious reading, I have received quite a medical education. When I read Lying for the first time, certain of the medical details struck me as odd. Slater includes an analysis of her epilepsy and its subsequent surgical treatment written by her treating neurologist. In it, the author states that LJS had eliopathic epilepsy. Hmmm, I thought. I've never encountered that term before; I'd better look it up. In another chapter, Slater describes presurgical testing; she explains her doctor will make a small incision in her scalp then stimulate different areas of her brain. That's odd, I thought; it's not quite that simple. Our brains are not enclosed in only our scalps -- there's another layer involved, our hard, bony skulls. Still I read on, on some level distrusting my thoughts. Yet when I finished the book and understood as much as I could, for there is much information the author does not, will not supply, I didn't feel manipulated. I felt instead awe. Don't take the chapter about marketing the book at face value. Ignore the author's insistence on categorizing this work as nonfiction. Forget that you found it shelved with the other illness memoirs. Slater has written the best piece of fiction I've read since I devoured J.K. Rowling's first novel. I hope she writes many more.
Rating:
Summary: nacreous
Review: Lying is both intellectually exciting and in some ways, psychologically helpful. It promotes the view of the influence of behavior and talk on mental illness, i.e., in this book, epilepsy. Lauren Slater is actually remarkably close-mouthed in many instances (through her reliance on emotionally based rather than realistic, connect the dots, event by event narration) for a person able to write countless memoirs, concerning her own mental illness, and she could have epilepsy--but I don't think so, just the fact that this is "A Metaphorical Memoir" and she talks about what her metaphor of epilepsy actually means very strongly indicates the fact, that she is talking about her mental illness. Her metaphorical lying about epilepsy also extends to the both escapist and hurtful tendencies of borderline personality disorder which go along with her depression. To be able to look at such feelings as influenced by behavior is freeing in a sense because with a change of behavior and biochemistry a new person can be shaped. A little lying is still nice anyway in a person who is able to be psychologically dependent or interdependent, as it creates an effervescent, "nacreous" (this appears to be one of Slater's favorite words) fiction such as this.
Personally, I think that this book is less scary than Prozac Diary, and more helpful to me as a person, simply seeking ways to deal with life. Of course, scaring and disgusting and making a person afraid of even herself can have its uses and is not a hallmark of bad literature---but it was more alienating than instructive.
Also, I am proud of Lauren Slater for going from tell-all-literature to a more novelistic postmodern style, despite the fact that this is still a memoir. I hope that she writes more books: hopefully, ones that are not autobiographical. I would prefer novels, but if she wants to write psychological tomes that's cool too. This is the kind of book that I could definitely see a college professor assigning in class and I rather would like that idea if I were the author.
The people who say this book is unreadable are probably those readers who liked her through her other book, Prozac Diary, which is in a fairly different style. Certain people like certain styles. I prefer this style. It's classier.
I wonder who Christopher Marin is? It's cool that he wrote a review.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating but peculiar "memoir"
Review: One finishes this book with many questions about what has actually happened during the life of Lauren Slater. Did she have temporal lobe seizure disorder? Or was she so traumatized during her childhood and adolescence by something or someone that she substitutes the seizure disorder for some other form of mental or physical illness? We are told that this is supposed to be a memoir not only about her illness -- whatever it was or is -- and the development of her creative abilities, but also about her relationship with her mother. We are given relatively little information about this relationship, except to be told about the mother's cold, distant method of "showing love" to her young daughter, her drinking problem, and her narcissistic personality. Could her mother have been so unloving that Slater could simply not write any more about a relationship that barely existed? It is difficult to review a work in which so much information seems to be withheld from the reader. This reader hopes some of these questions will be answered in future works by the author (and, meanwhile, feels rather frustrated with this "nonfiction" book which seems to be more like fiction!).
Rating:
Summary: A brilliant synthesis of neurology and psychology
Review: This is Slater's best work yet. It's a novel, a memoir, a neurological thriller, a fantastic flamboyant merging of genres. Slater tells the compulsively readable story of a young girl's epilepsy.(Her own? Maybe, maybe not, it hardly matters,) and the fascinating neurologically based states that result: auras of every color, scintillating smells; here, in this work, Slater examines fully the poetic possibility of disease, and, also, the way we use disease not only as an art form, but as a conduit for love. The scenes involving brain surgery and electrical brain probes are especially haunting and ironically accurate for a book which claims it's rooted in deception. It may be, but if so, than Lying, a splendid tour de force, illumintes for all of us how close truth and trickery really are.
Rating:
Summary: stunning
Review: This is, simply, the best memoir available in contemporary American letters. Slater here tells a gripping story of spiritual and moral awakening in beautiful prose. At the same time, this memoir explores the contradictions and possibilities at the heart of this new creative non fiction form, and she does this in a way that is not pretentious or overly "post modern," but that is exacting and exciting. Slater's book in many ways is like Dave Egger's book, A Heartbreaking work Of Staggering Genius in its innovative and oftentimes hilarious and heartbreaking sttructure and theme, but Slater's book is better, because while Eggers plays some neat narrative tricks, they never integrate with the deeper meaning of his work. Lying integrates form and function gorgeously. It will make you laugh, cry, and think. Congratulations, Lauren Slater, on a brilliant book.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing. Amazing. A mesmerizing read.
Review: Truth or lie? After finishing this book I wasn't sure what to believe. One is left wondering if the narrative is fact or fiction. I wonder... did any of the situations really happen or is the author just an amazing storyteller? Unless you know her personally, I don't think you will ever know.
Rating:
Summary: Eye Opening and Mind Teasing!
Review: Wow! This book was incredible. I am taking an autobiography class right now and it was a required reading. This is probably one of the most fascinating books I have ever read. Slater writes this book from an interesting perspective. As I was reading it I thought it was similar to the movie A Beautiful Mind. Like A Beautiful Mind you see her story directly through her eyes and from her perspective. Eventhough the reader is left wodnering what is real in her story, she does a great job of leading the reader through her story/her lie. In the beginning you read her story, beleiving what she says is the truth, but by the end you have no idea what the truth is. Some of my classmates said that they got frustrated with not knowing what the truth was, one literally threw the book across the room when she was reading. I, however, didn't get frustrated with it, but for some twisted reason I just saw it as looking at the world through her eyes. I mean afterall it is her autobiography, just because it isn't a fact doesn't neccessarily mean it isn't how she felt or what she expereinced. She even says this is a metaphorical memior and through it you can see that it wasn't about the events of her life but about her innerself, her emotions, and her perceptions of life. Overall though this book was excellent. It was hard to put it down and it constantly kept my attention. Definately a must read!
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