“My mother died this past Feb of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). She was the victim of being shut in. She lost all movement and the ability to speak or swallow. For nearly 9 months she was in a nursing home unable to communicate her needs, thoughts, hopes or sadnesses. It has taken me 9 months to get the courage to read this book. I have seen the movie, but was simply scared to actually read the words of a person trapped like my mother. As I read the book I can see the world as my mother must have in her final months. How dreadful and demeaning. I think the book and the movie are both wonderful works of art though.”
“today i'm going to see the movie and i'm very excited. maybe the story won't be so gripping but it definitely worth reading the book as a proof of respect shown to the author. the feel i received when reading the review in a magazine cannot be expressed. i do appreciate this man's willingness and i hope that from where he is he sees that here are people whom he impressed and whose outlook of life he changed”
“You should never feel sorry for yourself if you've read this book, count your blessing and enjoy life to the limit.”
“The film is amazing, especially in french! I saw it first and it didn't ruin the book.”
“This story moved one person so much so, that she wrote about it on her blog. Go and read what Britt has to say about the Diving Bell and Butterfly! http://www.brittarnhildshouseinthewoods.typepad.com/”
“Having been on the other side of the hospital room bed (so to speak) - my mother was in a medically-induced coma for a month and in ICU for three months before she died several years ago - I gained a new and unexpected insight into what she might have felt had she been able to speak. That he was able to transcribe his thoughts using the blinking of his eye - and to be so eloquent with the brush-stroke of his lashes - is just amazing to me. I am shocked and I am touched by this book on levels I had not anticipated. I read it in one day (2 sittings) and am planning on reading it again soon. I find myself wanting to pour over every detail possible, to understand him - as if I were one of his visitors straining to make out his meaning in the blink of an eye. As if I were still sitting with my own mother trying to make out the meaning in the shift of a leg or trying to read her lips when she awoke. ”
“Just saw the movie of this amazing book tonight. I was so glad that neither film nor book had Bauby's character sugar-coated. He really was somewhat of a cad before his cerebral accident, and in the movie he remains heartless in his treatment of women. There were some differences in book and movie and one wonders how much was added for dramatic purposes and how much of what was added might have been legit, but from other sources. A chilling scenario. ”
