I read this book years ago when an acquaintance was going through a hard struggle with breast cancer. This year, after my girlfriend was diagnosed with lung cancer, I read it again. Two different cancers, but the same beautiful book, which I find measured, comprehensive and full of quiet inspiration. Wittman doesn’t write around the topic. She’s in a life-and-death struggle, but keeps a level head about it, even a bit of humor. She’s never insistent. She doesn’t tell the reader what to do, but presents, in simple, pane-of-glass prose, the wide range of therapies she herself pursued in the battle against her cancer. She follows standard medical treatments such as radiation and chemotherapy, but also explores meditation, changes in diet, visualization and the use of Chinese herbs.

“Juliet Wittman has written an extraordinary book. And because she thinks so clearly and writes so well, her book provides a great deal of common-sense information on what to do and what not to do when cancer strikes.”

Wittman is eloquent. Her storytelling abilities make Breast Cancer Journal compelling to those who are free of the disease, but informative and reassuring to those thrown onto the roller coasterride of cancer treatment.

“Told with irony, wit, and absolute candor and perhaps most valuably, without an apparent agenda, this is the story of one woman’s experience with cancer. Juliet Wittman writes of the diagnosis and various treatments of her breast cancer, describing not just the surgery, chemotherapy and radiation she endured, but the healing effects of reading and writing, of talking with friends and drinking Chinese herbs. She is a skeptic and a cynic who nonetheless finds herself benefiting from the power of creative visualization and workshops on the healing energy of love. … This book is terrific for a number of reasons, but mostly because Wittman is smart and funny and wise.”

The WomanSource Catalog & Review