Though antiquated in some ways, as a form of narrative nonfiction it still succeeds. It’s engaging, thoughtful, full of empathy, genuinely interesting. This book has been picked apart by people in the field now, but I am, to say the least, a laymen, and so I wasn’t bothered by that as much; mostly the actual language to describe the patients is what signals how out of date it is.

Nonfiction isn’t my preferred genre either, so while it was engaging, that’s basically the ultimate high praise from me. But I’ve also read things like When We Cease To Understand, where the narrative is as good as fiction, and acknowledges that even nonfiction is generally pretty much just selling the viewpoint of an individual, which is basically all but fiction to me, anyway.

But, this was far better than I expected. So there’s that. A three star read means it met my expectations, just that it didn’t exceed them. And for such a lauded modern classic as this, that’s high praise, I think.