Epileptic

Epileptic

By: David Beauchcard

As Jean-Christophe comes out of his room with a kitchen knife in his hands, David comes out, tackles him and intercepts the knife. David didn’t want anyone to get hurt. “What’s going on?” David’s dad shouts storming from his room. David does not tell him about the knife, to protect Jean-Christophe from getting sent to the hospital.

David Beauchard gives us a unique story of his life in Epileptic. Epileptic is a story about the author, David, living a hard life with his brother, who is diagnosed with epilepsy. Hence, the author titled the book Epileptic. David’s brother, Jean-Christophe, gets epileptic seizures three times a day, not being able to find a cure. The book is about the author and his family journeying to battle Jean-Christophe’s epilepsy.

The book starts from the author’s childhood. Told chronologically, the author becomes an adult at the end of the book. During the author’s childhood, he was the first person to find out about his brother’s epileptic disease. Almost three times per day, Jean-Christophe experiences epileptic seizures, unconsciously falling to the ground, drooling and whimpering. David makes several attempts until his adulthood to cure Jean-Christophe, but unfortunately fails every time.

From childhood to adulthood, the author realizes about a lot of things. First he was worried about his brother and hoped that a doctor will be able to cure him later on. But as several medical attempts fail, David loses hope and thinks about plans to kill him. His siter thought the same as David, and they both had the mutual feeling of pity and hatred towards Jean-Christophe. But when David reaches adulthood, he understands Jean-Christophe’s epilepsy and feels empathy for him.

There were no favorite lines I liked since the book was a graphic novel, but I still had a favorite graphic. It was in page 235, because I could really know how David felt with all the attention going to him and his brother. It was a picture of the crowd looking at his brother having a seizure. It described really well how David felt embarrassed of the crowd because of his brother.