Nerve: A Personal Journey Through the Science of Fear

by Eva Holland

SHORTLISTED for the 2021 BC and Yukon Book Prizes' Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize
 
A personal story about not only facing but conquering fears.

In 2015, Eva Holland was forced to confront her greatest fear when her mother had a stroke and suddenly passed away. After the shock and grief subsided, Holland began to examine the extent to which her many fears had limited her, and wondered whether or not it was possible to move past them.

This sent Holland on a deep dive into the science of fear, digging into an array of universal and personal questions: Why do we feel fear? Where do phobias come from and how are they related to anxiety disorders and trauma? Can you really smell fear? (Yes.) What would it be like to feel no fear? Is there a cure for fear? Or, put differently, is there a better way to feel afraid?

On her journey, Holland meets with scientists who are working to eliminate phobias with a single pill, she explores the lives of the few individuals who suffer from a rare disease that prevents them from ever feeling fear, and she immerses herself in her own fears including hurling herself out of a plane for her first skydive (and in the process, learns that there are right and wrong ways to face your fears).

Fear is a universal human experience, and Nerve answers these questions in a refreshingly accessible way, offering readers an often personal, sometimes funny, and always rigorously researched journey through the science of facing our fears.

• ISBN10: 0735237336
• ISBN13: 9780735237339
• Publish Date: 7 April 2020
• Publish Status: Remaindered
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Prentice Hall Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 288
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780735237339

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Nerve is an interesting book which is something of a hybrid between non-fiction science and memoir by Eva Holland. Released 14th April 2020 by The Experiment, it's 256 pages and available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats.

The book is split into three interwoven and related parts. The first part is a moving personal account of the author's experiences with situational phobias in her own life and how it was inextricably tied to emotional trauma. She has a sure and deft voice and she expresses it with a touching vulnerability and strength. The second part of the book is an account of her journey toward grabbing her own fear of falling, of heights, of loss of physical control, and taking control of it and learning to minimize its effects on her life by doing the exact things of which she was most afraid. The third part of the book (and the one which completely sucked me in) is the layman accessible examination of the physiological science behind fear and fear reactions. I learnt quite a lot from these chapters about the body's response to fear (both rational and irrational) and the emotional responses to the physiological reactions.

There are some parts of the book which I found almost excruciating to read. The author is quite gifted at realistically depicting the terror of a full blown panic attack and it makes for both enlightening and difficult reading. The author has provided a superb bibliography and reading list with annotations for each chapter for readers who are interested in further exploration of the subject.

This is not a how-to-fix-your-fears handbook; the author has not provided medical advice. It is, however, a compelling and interesting look at the author's experiences with her own phobia in her own life.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.