This book was difficult to get through, simply because it resonated with me so deeply. Having lived with the sequelae of multiple head injuries for nearly half my life, Liontas’s story and beautiful writing hit me in places I try hard to protect, reminded me of truths I try to forget, highlighted realities I wish weren’t real. I will be recommending this book to anyone who wishes to understand my experience as someone who will forever be living in the shadow of mTBI.

Working in brain injury it’s so difficult to explain to people how invasive a brain injury can be to every aspect of your life. This book was an illuminating example for all in the ways a concussion, and multiple concussions can control and dismantle your life. An important book for all to better understand the experiences of the walking wounded

Reviewed on my YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/lN8HvRf6Y_4?si=55dxihF441eFGAjq&t=570

Audio script:

"When the publisher offered to send me a copy [of Sex with a Brain Injury] for review, I picked it up partly because my son has experienced a series of concussions over the past year. The first was straightforward—not enough to make him black out or anything like that. And the proceeding ones would not necessarily have had much impact—so to speak—on someone who had not had a concussion before. Nevertheless, even the mildest bumps could immediately bring back many of the symptoms of a more significant concussion. Even just travelling along a bumpy road, or what even by what someone thinks of as a gentle loving pat on the head. As my son talked with me about his own experiences and what he was learning from other people who’d had concussions as well as from his health care team, I got really fascinated. And this book—by a person whose first concussion was relatively mild but which were quickly followed by a couple of additional mild concussions—well, the book adds quite a bit to the insights I’d already learned from what my son had shared with me.

"I especially enjoyed Liontas’s presentation of scientific, social, and even historical research into concussions and brain injury. I had never spent much time thinking about how head trauma had played such a huge role in the lives of people like Harriet Tubman (active in the Undergound Railroad during the antebellum period in the US) or Henry the Eighth. Fascinating stuff.

"But this book is very much a memoir as well. ...Sex with a Brain Injury also looks at queer sexuality and same-sex marriage. The “Sex” in the title does in one little section mean exactly what the suggestive title might…suggest, but mostly it is a nod to the gendered experience of concussion—that is, how concussions might be experienced differently because of both biological and cultural experiences of gender. And the “sex” of the title is also, I think, a nod to a main theme that runs through the book: the impact that one person’s concussion can have on a marriage, on a romantic relationship.

"There were times when I was turned off by the author’s decision to include several different stories that contained information that Liontas wanted to keep private. The lines are explicitly blacked out. Occasionally I thought the technique was an interesting maybe postmodern attempt to blur the lines between what was visible and what was invisible, but overall, this choice usually felt too gimmicky to me. Let me read you one example: “ME: What don’t I know about you? YOU: a couple of blacked-out lines ME: one blacked-out line YOU: There’s nothing you don’t know about me that I want to tell you.” Liontas is trying to balance telling us that she is trying to talk about something private, trying to be open in some way but explicitly within what is an intimate discussion, and I think the effort to thread that needle is hard. Still, I wasn’t convinced that this effort was successful.

"I recommend this book especially to readers who’ve appreciated other books about disability and chronic illness--like Meghan O’Rourke’s well-done investigative memoir The Invisible Kingdom.

An informative and tender memoir about traumatic brain injuries and how they affect the daily life of those who have suffered from one.

Split up into different chapters switching from Annie’s personal experiences with recovery and her relationships to prisoners and NFL players, there’s a lot of great information presented in an engaging way.

I absolutely loved how raw and intimate Annie’s chapters were regarding her experiences trying to cope with her three brain injuries. Hearing what her every day life was like navigating her changed brain was emotional and inspiring.

On the other end, Annie provides us with insightful data on other groups affected by brain injuries, including NFL players, abused women, prisoners, and more. She included a lot of interesting information to keep the reader thinking of how many people are going through the same challenges.

I really enjoyed this memoir and will definitely be recommending to my friends and followers.

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC :)

I enjoyed the nuance and the rawness of this book. I enjoyed the way that Liontas described all the dirty, good, bad, ugly, beautiful things of their life living with brain injuries. I think some parts could be cut down, but overall a great and unique read.

Insightful, surprising, and moving. Annie Liontas manages to tie together so many ideas about sex, health, queerness, desire in unexpected and bold ways. I loved it.

I don’t have the steam today to write a long caption about this book. It deserves one though. This memoir is a really wonderful, important book. Definitely one to check out, particularly if you are in a helping profession or find yourself in the company of someone who has experienced brain injury (which is probably almost all of us).

The hooky title hooked me, and the rest of the book delivered. Annie shares their lived experience navigating not one, not two, but three concussions in a short span of time. Blending personal stories with education about brain injury, Annie invites you into a world that anyone of us can find ourselves living in.

Thank you to @aliontas , @netgalley , and @scribnerbooks for a digital review copy of this book.

"Sex with a Brain Injury" is an engaging memoir that examines the impact of concussions on many aspects of life including work and close relationships. The essays are a mixed bag—some clear and poignant, others as muddled as the cognitive effects of a concussion, perhaps reflecting the author's lived experience. Despite the title, the book delves into the broader implications of living with a brain injury rather than focusing on intimacy, which is what I thought I was going to be reading. It's an informed work, well-referenced, and wrapped in clever metaphors, offering a raw and multifaceted perspective that resonates with authenticity and insight. I found myself looking up a lot of the celebrities the author discussed to supplement my background knowledge. Ultimately, reading this book required more of me than I had expected to give, but I also learned a lot.

A heart wrenching intimate memoir of life with a chronic illness.The author’s life her personal relationship changes after suffering several concussions this is an eye opening emotionally moving eye opening book.#netgalley #scribner

3/5 stars,

A memoir about life after multiple concussions. As someone who has had multiple concussions, this piece was very emotional for me to read about someone struggling with the same issues. I particularly enjoyed the discussion around athletes with traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) and incarcerated individuals with TBIs. I wish there was more awareness to folks suffering from head injuries. There was a lot of fluff throughout the book that made it hard to finish and get through.

Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for the advance reader copy. This is my honest review.

Annie Liontas has written one of the most beautiful meditations on chronic illness and the way life changes around it. I went into this book expecting a story of one woman's journey through a concussion and instead it changed my perspective on love and a sense of loss that chronic illness can spread throughout your life. This book is wonderful and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC!

"Come for the shock. Stay for the awe.”

I always like when memoirists stop for a moment to give readers a good sentence—by this, I mean a sentence that carries so much love and attention that it feels like the entire book hinges upon it. Annie Liontas does that many, many times, and it highlights how "Sex with a Brain Injury" is birthed out of deep reflection. This is a book that is both very funny and very resonant. Illness may preclude narrative, but it can still deliver a punchline.

While I don’t have a brain injury, I do have migraines, and I was amazed at how perfectly Liontas articulated the way they can inhibit a full life by being an “ankle bracelet.”

In the opening chapter, we read a glowing conclusion about how the injury opened the author’s eyes and it sometimes feels “like the most precious gift.” Admittedly, there’s a tension here between the reality of health struggles and the need for a book to have a payoff, but it did strike me as an odd way to begin. It’s emblematic of the book’s ever-so-slight shagginess—material that could be cleaned up in an edit but is all the more endearing because it isn’t. Readers will likely be divided on whether or not they think it is saccharine, but I wanted and needed the comfort of that optimism.

Lest that sound like a critique, the book is far from sloppy, and Liontas avoids the trap of insularity we might expect in a memoir like this. Pain feeds solipsism—after all, when one is unwell, where else can they look but the flashpoint of their suffering? With that in mind, it is to this book’s great benefit that Liontas takes every opportunity to get out of her own head and draw from an absolute litany of sources and co-sufferers. I hesitate to use the word “academic” because that might make it sound inaccessible, but the book is so thoughtfully in conversation with countless other people that it effortlessly makes the difficult leap from the individual to the collective. This positions the author’s struggle as complex and opens discussions about medical access, work culture, and stigma surrounding invisible illness, each of which are handled with care. I finished with a whole reading list ahead of me.

Because injury and illness are often non-linear, it’s helpful to think of this book in the same way. Readers expecting a straightforward “road to recovery” narrative won’t find that. Instead, each chapter touches on one of the many ways injury intersects with life. I found this to be a really effective way of showing how injury overstays its welcome without—necessarily—causing the book to overstay its welcome. While I personally think the book is a little long, I suspect others won’t because even the length feels intentional. Readers get the sense that these problems are recursive, as is coming to terms with them, and the end result is an almost meditative read.

It feels a little strange to call a book “gracious,” but that is the word I was left with after finishing "Sex with a Brain Injury." I think the greatest memoirs are those that serve a higher purpose than the author’s self-actualization, and this is a book that ultimately is not “for” Annie Liontas. Instead, it is for everybody who has been in a similar position and felt unseen.

In the vein of Leslie Jamison's THE EMPATHY EXAMS and Esme Weijun Wang's THE COLLECTED SCHIZOPHRENIAS, Annie Liontas' SEX WITH A BRAIN INJURY is an arresting medical memoir that will stay with its readers long after they finish the last essay. Liontas' description of the devastating, life-altering effects of suffering multiple concussions in her thirties is absolutely harrowing, particularly because her injuries are heartbreakingly benign: a tumble off a bicycle, a box falling from a high shelf, losing her balance and bumping into a light switch. This is not to say that her story is somehow more tragic than those she explores of people who "put themselves" in harms way through high-impact sports or dangerous hobbies, but the commonplace nature of Liontas' injuries makes their traumatic consequences all the more shocking. This is a book that will have you gasping for air and reaching for your loved ones, asking "Did you know--?" with every new horrifying fact about the very real fragility of our brains. The statistics Liontas shares are truly mind-boggling, and her exploration of brain injury's role in culture, the criminal justice system, mental health, and history is both rich and utterly coherent. I was blown away by this memoir--by Liontas' pain and her compassion.

This was a different and unique read! A true story. A memoir.
Somewhat very relatable, if you are living with an absolutely invisible disability or illness that makes you “look ok” to the outside world.
Also way too relatable if you yourself have encountered head traumas that have impacted your life. And, it made me think for the millionth time in my life how all minor head traumas are normalized, dismissed, and ignored by most doctors. Because *for most* that’s no big deal, but you never know when you may get the one rare bad apple of all the mild traumas. Sports at school? Yeah, everyone bumps their head almost daily, no big deal, right? Nope, wrong.
Also, I’d like to yell a loud and clear THANK YOU to the author for the honesty!