When reading I was surprised when she said “but there is no Dr. Neu.”(pg.175). Right there we can see her intelligence in confusing the readers. I have to say she did a good job making up the story. But finally she confesses her lies as we see her change as she finds peace in an AA group. She confesses that she is not an alcoholic but no-one believes her leaving the truth untold. The story ends with a surprise and with her recognitions.

Overall the story itself made Lauren seem so innocent but we finally see the truth about her. Now we understand why she lied all this time, because she never had the attention from her parents. She saw that lying and making up story’s about her sickness made everyone have attention on to her.

When reading this last section of the book I can see all the lies Lauren is capable of and has done throughout the book. When reading “but there is no Dr. Neu.”(pg.175) I was surprised that she lied about him throughout the book and made it sound so real. If Hayward Krieger, the professor of Philosophy, who supposedly had written the introduction of this book doesn’t exist and now we find out Dr. Neu doesnt exist either, I wondered if anyone else in this book that was mention doesn’t exist. Lauren’s childhood was the cause of her being the way she is because she never got the attention that she needed especially from her mother which is someone she really cares about. Her mother was practically never there when she needed her and missed out certain important events because she was always drunk. Lauren feels sad and lonely and just wants all the attention she never got when she was young so she feels the need to lie and does a good job at it.

Joining the AA group did well for Lauren because she starts to face reality and all the things she had done wrong. “my disease got worst. I started, you know, doing it at home, in school, all the time, just stumbling around and making a real fool of myself. When I think back on my behavior now, I am humiliated. Just humiliated.”(205) Lauren confessing to the AA group about her disease and how it got out of hand and now she realizes how she was making a fool of herself and how she is humiliated of everything she’s been through with the disease she says she has. “Well, I’m not surprised. I always knew you didn’t really have epilepsy. I always knew these seizures were just a thing you had to grow out of” (189) Lauren’s mom was very sure that Lauren didn’t really have epilepsy and that all Lauren had to do was grow up and see for herself that it was all in her head and not something that was really true. This goes back in the part when Lauren said she couldn’t see and her mom was like ofcourse you can see proving to Lauren that it was all in her head and she can actually see. Lauren’s mother and her childhood are an important key of what Lauren goes through in this memoir. She just seeks for attention and wants it always on her and since she can never get it, it becomes a habit of her lying which makes everything that she says questionable and whether if it’s true or just another lie.

“I said my name was Juliette Epstein, and that I had interviewed this student by the name of Lauren Slater”(171). This is the first time when the narrator openly accepts the fact that she made up a fictional character to fill the void. She tries too hard to accept the fact that “epilepsy” was behind most of her actions. On the next page Lauren says she is two separate people which can be the symbol of her saying that the outside version of her is telling all the lies and delusions while the inside tries hard to escape her inter wall through aruas.

Lauren was only lying to herself the whole time making it seem like she was having external conflicts but in fact the problem was internal. The AA meetings seemed to be the best possible solution to her problems like all the influences in the AA meetings help her overlook that she tried to cover up all of her problems with fake illnesses. Her power created a character whom I thought was real and his name was Dr. Nue, I found it funny when she didn’t like the fact that when didn’t like the other doctors answer she zoned out. “I’m not surprised. I always knew you didn’t really have epilepsy. I always knew these seizures were just a thing you had to grow out of.”(190)So all this time Ann knew that Lauren did not suffer from the illness proves how far she had to go and fix her problems.

I was completely shocked when i read these lines ““I’m sorry, but there is no Dr.Neu.” (178) i couldnt believe that Dr.neu might not be true but merely just a made up person , this part just made me shut the book down completely, i have absolutely no trust on lauren anymore on anything that she says. I feel that lauren was trying to come to terms with herself and trying to express her personality but im not really sure what she is trying to show because it makes her unreliable nothing she says is true and her personality its coming off to be very deceitful.

I understand sort of why Lauren decided to join the AA group and lie that she is an alcoholic, yeah i get it that she wants attention but i feel she truly looks for attention that she doesnt need and attention that would never truly make her feel better, i feel lauren wants someone to pity her. It took me a while to notice that i understand what lauren is feeling, she has abandonment issues and thats something i suffer from. Lauren needs constant love and affection she didnt receive from her parents, i went almost 10 years without my parents in my childhood. Lauren doesnt suffer fro m none of the diseases that she claims to have, and the AA group thing cleared almost all of the question i had about her, Lauren has a huge whole in her heart and until she gets this she will continue to get worst and seek ‘love’ in the worst places.

the afterwards was trying to close the novel in a way to help the reader understand the course the novel took. I dont know if the lying really sent out the message that lauren really wanted to get across, the metaphors left me with more question and confusion of what truly did happened to her, what was the true reality for lauren, what really happened. The author succeed in writing a beautiful novel but failed to get laurens message across properly i was left with more questions than answers.

Finally Lauren reaches out to get help.  I was actually happy for the narrator Lauren as towards the end she became more of herself.  She sort of embraced the fact of who she was.  Because Lauren went to the AA group of alcoholics she helps me as the reader understand that her illness was much more than an illness. It was definitely a comparison to what everyday people go through whether or not it’s a disease just like stated “everyone in AA was battling against this disease of alcoholism as I, too, had battled against the disease o epilepsy”   . As the narrator starts off chapter eight she starts off with “I was born from nothing and to nothing I will return.” (169). As I states before I believe this is just her coming to terms that who she is what she will always be.

As I finished the book it basically left me with the terms of Lauren epilepsy being the definition of her wanting to gain attention. Whether she received the attention and then losing it, it was what caused her everyday trouble.

When Lauren visit the psychologist and he told her that the paper  was a lie (176) “this, he said, this paper , he said , is not real”  brought to my attention that it was one of her  routines of where she thought she could once again gain attention from but it failed her. The book in my opinion was about her trying to get attention because of the fact she lacked it from the people who meant the most to her.

At newcomers’ night at the AA meeting, Lauren is urged to tell her story to everyone. Lauren wants to finally tell everyone the truth that she is not an alcoholic, but she is afraid of the risk of doing so. She don’t want to disappoint them or make the angry. She’s afraid of changing how the group sees her. She gets so scared that she “relapsed, just like an alcoholic” (204). She instead uses her words to tell the truth but bury it in the words with metaphor. She tells her story whole story but instead of epilepsy, she says she’s an alcoholic.She main point during her story was that “it’s a disease of relapse” (206). She is motivating/inspiring everyone in the group and helping them not to relapse, when she is relapsing by lying much more.

When Lauren does finally tell the truth to the group, she gets angry and feels “hate” (214). She feels this way because the group doesn’t believe her and thinks that she is just in denial about being an alcoholic. It infuriates her because they will never get to know the her real self.