"Suddenly Silent and Still: Finding Joy and Meaning Through Illness is a compelling memoir by Nin Mok. The book starts with an inspiring prologue and each chapter begins with thought-provoking epigraphs. Born in Thailand, the author immigrated to Darwin, Australia with her family as a child. Following her education in Adelaide, she excelled as an engineer and secured a position at a prestigious technology company where she crossed paths with her husband, Tom. Together, they are the proud parents of two children, Jet and Jade. Nin balanced her professional and family life until an unexpected illness altered her trajectory. Stricken with hearing loss in one ear and debilitating vertigo, she grappled with the absence of a cure, prompting a transition from Project Manager to full-time mom. Amidst feelings of inadequacy and helplessness, she embarked on a quest to rediscover joy and purpose in life.

Nin Mok's Suddenly Silent and Still: Finding Joy and Meaning Through Illness is a candid and captivating memoir that details how a debilitating illness derailed her career and led her to become a homemaker. She vividly describes the life-altering and completely unexpected day when she lost two major abilities: hearing and balance. The author writes brilliantly and compellingly about these challenging times, yet she gracefully acknowledges that there is light and humor in the midst of it all. The true accomplishment of this memoir is that it tells a story that is both honest and humble. She embraces life's contradictions and confusion with truly admirable courage. This book will change a reader's perspective on the meaning of life."

"In her memoir Suddenly Silent and Still: Finding Joy and Meaning Through Illness, Nin Mok shares her deeply personal journey of living with chronic illness and hearing loss. As she faces physical issues like vertigo, tinnitus, and labyrinthitis, Mok is bowled over by the emotional weight of her conditions, fluctuating between optimism and despair. She seeks out various treatments and wrestles with anxiety, but still finds solace in her family, particularly in her role as a mother. Mok’s reflections on her evolving sense of self-worth, shaped by her health struggles, speak of the hardships of balancing personal identity and caregiving. Her exploration of the broader impact of trauma and suffering offers insight into resilience and the importance of reframing adversity. Through her experiences, Mok discovers meaning in the everyday and assures readers that healing is a gradual, non-linear process.

Suddenly Silent and Still by Nin Mok offers a candid and extremely courageous retelling of what Mok went through; something many readers will have been unable to fathom until sitting down with Mok's book. Her writing is heartfelt and introspective, intentionally drawing readers into her experiences. I found the messaging to be consistently and universally relatable, especially as someone who also has invisible disabilities. I most liked how Mok detailed her account of seeking spiritual comfort and trying various therapies, which are often eclipsed in similar books by technical jargon. The book's strength lies in its raw honesty—Mok doesn’t sugarcoat the emotional toll but rather reflects on how these problems ultimately reshape her sense of self and purpose. Her shift from despair to acceptance offers an inspiring message about healing and finding meaning through suffering, making this a beautiful read for those who feel adrift, regardless of the disability they are up against. Very highly recommended."

"Suddenly Silent and Still is an uplifting memoir by Nin Mok. It captures Nin's journey through violent vertigo, the loss of two major senses, hearing and balance, lessons learned, and recovery. When tragedy suddenly hits Nin, a project management executive, she finds herself experiencing negative feelings, dark thoughts, crippling anxiety, profound grief, and panic attacks. While feeling defeated, she starts asking questions like, why her? What did she do to deserve this? In this memoir, Nin recounts how she lost her identity, independence, capabilities, confidence, and dreams and how she was forced to transition from a career woman to a stay-at-home mom while dealing with the uncertainty of recovery. Nin's illness forces her to slow down and reflect on her life, on herself before the tragedy, her worth, and more.

Nin Mok has delivered an inspiring and brave memoir about her struggle to reclaim her life while dealing with sudden hearing loss and violent vertigo. Suddenly Silent and Still offers a glimpse into the life of a remarkable woman who learns to navigate grief, loss, and medical trauma with understanding, hope, and acceptance. This thoughtful and deeply felt memoir shows the importance of family support, finding an interest, a purpose, or the will to reengage with life, no matter how difficult your path, and accepting your new reality and adapting to it. This book is essential for anyone who has experienced sudden hearing loss, grief, disability, or other chronic illnesses or knows someone who does. It inspires hope and understanding and helps you find the strength to face life's challenges."

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"Suddenly Silent and Still: Finding Joy and Meaning through Illness, by Nin Mok, is the gripping and poignant personal account of what it's like to lose your hearing all at once, and experience the extreme vertigo and imbalance accompanying it.

Prior to her hearing loss, the author was a project manager whose expertise was planning and control, yet she found herself with no control or concrete plan due to the hearing loss that came so unexpectedly. But she was a mother with children, and they were the motivating force in her life that helped her hang on and strive for recovery in a life that had become silent and still.

Nin Mok's book is aptly titled. Few of us know what it's like to live in sudden silence, being unable to hear things most of us take for granted, like the sound of our children's or loved ones’ voices, music, a windchime, the news on TV, the sounds of traffic, or even your own voice.

Mok brings us into her world, her struggles, and her journey through loss, pain, and medical issues. One day she's an accomplished professional, and the next she's a mother operating from home with limited function. This threw her into a tailspin of uncertainty and confusion, forcing her into a deep examination of her life, values, and plans for the future. She thought she had her life all mapped out, like most of us do. The things, ideas, and ideals she relied on became unstable. Was it all a mirage? What was her value now? Why was she given this new way to live? It was the sudden stillness that opened her to new ways of thinking, to following a path of rediscovering herself and who she really was. She had to relearn what matters most.

The author uses frankness and a sense of humor as she relays her story, and though she writes about serious topics, she does so courageously so that others can learn from her experience and can find healing in their illnesses and disabilities. You'll find realism balanced with encouragement; hopelessness tempered with resilience. Mok is a shining example of how we can turn a negative into a positive.

One of my favorite parts of the book is when Nin Mok is contemplating a pigeon that has landed on her porch. She wonders how it could accept being so still, so happy just to be the way it is. This is one of the moments that helped her gain insight into her own situation. The writing style is intimate and deep, inviting us to share in her ups and downs and ultimate outcomes. Her story is relatable and inspiring, to say the least. We often learn to cope by learning how other people cope in similar circumstances. If you're looking for an uplifting true story or are going through some medical challenges that seem insurmountable, I urge you to read Suddenly Silent and Still: Finding Joy and Meaning through Illness by Nin Mok." 

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