Fear i
s something that can hinder you from taking on challenges you most likely can handle, totally immobilize you or build your character. I spent more than half a month watching the protagonist of Now I See You experience fear in its worst and greatest form. I watched as she fought against acknowledging an inevitable calamity. And I witnessed a proud woman coming to terms with her situation in the most childish and immature way imaginable.
When I read the first pages of this book, I swore that Nicole was this crazy, maniacal teen who is out to enjoy the most in life and doesn’t intend to cut back. But when she’s diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (a seriously depressing eye disease that will leave her blind before she’s forty) she puts her life on hyper speed in an attempt to completely ignore this inevitable misfortune. So, ok, I can understand how traumatic it must be when your doctor calls you in for a casual eye exam just for you to find out later that you might be going blind. Sure. Totally a good enough reason to panic. But living in denial till the disease gets really serious? So ridiculous! There are many different choices she could have taken to fight the disease. Offering herself up as an experiment to find a cure, look for medicine to slow the disease down or at least accept the fact that she’s going blind and prepare from early instead of being so damn ignorant. But then again, I don’t think I can exactly judge her when I’ve never been in a situation where I’m told I’ll be labelled a “disabled person” before I even start PMS-ing.
Thankfully, when she gives birth to her children she realizes that she can no longer live in a state of denial if ever she wants to keep her kids from danger so she takes mini steps towards learning how to function as a blind person. And this defining moment is probably my favorite in the entire book since I got to see a woman who’s hell-bent on denying her disease not only grow a pair and step up to the plate but also the extent to which a mother will go to protect her kiddies.
What really annoyed me about how Nicole behaved is that throughout the story, she never relied on her husband for help. She tried handling her disease alone all out of pride. So, I can understand why she wouldn’t rely on her family since they seemed in as much pain (or even more) about the news and it’s evident that she gets the ignoring-the-elephant-in-the-room behavior from them but David was nothing but caring towards her yet she only depended on him when it came around to having a third child. I mean, the poor guy is more than a babymaker! *sigh*.
Still, I couldn’t help but actually admire Nicole. Her resolve to get her shit together once she sees that she can’t keep her impending blindness a secret anymore. Her childish but grab-life-by-the-balls demeanor that you can’t help but love. How mentally unbalanced she appeared at times (especially in the beginning when she was dumped by her boyfriend at the time). I enjoyed reading about all of it.
In all, Now I See You is a book that inspires, motivates and empathizes with people who have been through the same predicament as Nicole or any hardship. It exposes the truth behind how a person reacts when they come face to face with an enormous hurdle and just how much effort it takes to overcome it.
Rating: 7/10
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Book Info:
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press (June 24, 2014)
Length: 288 pages
Source: Netgalley ARC
Genre: Memoir
Completed: June 2014
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