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ashleyholstrom's review against another edition
4.0
This memoir about Porochista’s life with late-stage Lyme disease wrecked me.
⚡️From the May 2018 edition of Crooked Reads, my monthly(ish) newsletter.
⚡️From the May 2018 edition of Crooked Reads, my monthly(ish) newsletter.
half_book_and_co's review against another edition
3.0
Porochista Khakpour felt a little (or even a lot) off in her body for most of her life - there were aching, dizzy spells, and all kinds of diffuse symptoms. Her memoir "Sick" chronicles her life as being a sick person without a diagnosis. Only quite late doctors finally could put their finger onto the problem: Khakpour has got late stage Lyme disease. The book is not about a straightforward quest to health or at least an answer to the question of what is wrong. Instead, the book meanders, jumps back and forward. The chapters are roughly sorted with regards to locations as Khakpour constantly moves between Los Angeles and New York, but also Santa Fe, Leipzig (Germany), and other places, after first being displaced as a child fleeing with her family from Iran to the USA. She states: “I sometimes wonder if I would have been less sick if I had a home.” The structure makes sense since her trials to find a home, a place she feels comfortable in, is also linked to her alienation from her body. The nonlinear narrative is equally connected to some questions which might never be answered: When did she contract Lyme? And where?
Khakpour's narrative is not one to easily grapple with. She writes about drug addiction (and the mix of recreational and party drugs and drugs she (first) took to fight some symptoms), difficult relationships, and a lot of uncertainty. She acknowledges blank spaces and the decisions to leave certain aspects out of the book. This is not "the whole story", as no memoir ever is "the whole story", but in contrast to many other books, she makes this very clear.
Khakpour also writes: "I've never been good at being sick. [...] I am not a poster child for wellness." This admission, which comes late in the book but is the sentiment throughout, makes this book so interesting: Khakpour did not try to appeal to an able-bodied audience who might prefer a simple story of suffering (by a person who earned sympathy through good behaviour) with clear reasoning and plain answers. She denies this impulse and instead goes for the complexities of life. I am very glad I read this book though at times I lost interest in the particularities - not due to the content or the general structure but to the writing style which did not always work for me.
Khakpour's narrative is not one to easily grapple with. She writes about drug addiction (and the mix of recreational and party drugs and drugs she (first) took to fight some symptoms), difficult relationships, and a lot of uncertainty. She acknowledges blank spaces and the decisions to leave certain aspects out of the book. This is not "the whole story", as no memoir ever is "the whole story", but in contrast to many other books, she makes this very clear.
Khakpour also writes: "I've never been good at being sick. [...] I am not a poster child for wellness." This admission, which comes late in the book but is the sentiment throughout, makes this book so interesting: Khakpour did not try to appeal to an able-bodied audience who might prefer a simple story of suffering (by a person who earned sympathy through good behaviour) with clear reasoning and plain answers. She denies this impulse and instead goes for the complexities of life. I am very glad I read this book though at times I lost interest in the particularities - not due to the content or the general structure but to the writing style which did not always work for me.
abbyhgarrett's review against another edition
2.0
I didn’t love this book. However, the authors journey through a chronic illness did cause me to feel empathetic towards those who are struggling with Lymes disease and other chronic illnesses.
greenikat89's review against another edition
1.0
I disliked this book so much I put off a review for weeks because I didn't want to spend any more time thinking about it. The only reason I powered through this book is because it's for a bookclub.
I wanted to like this book because it's a story that needs to be told and it needs to be highlighted how women and especially women of color are treated and disbelieved a lot in medical communities (or that WoC are tougher than others and don't experience pain the same way).
However, Porochista was a very unpleasant person to read about, complained a lot, talked about how she was alone and never had anyone around her but was constantly getting support from friends and family (even living in friend's homes and getting access to things that a lot of people don't have).
I also found it really distasteful she would judge this couple, who paid for everything, because the wife was a sex worker and the husband knew and supported it (and made sure she was safe) but Porochista judged them and told her mother about it. Porochista has no room to judge others after everything she's done and it was a point in the story that really stuck out to me.
Additionally, she said at the end that she wrote this book when she was really sick which is fine. However, I really believe an editor should have then done their job to make sure the book flowed, made sense, and helped with the structure. I would pass on this book if you're interested in reading about chronic illness.
I wanted to like this book because it's a story that needs to be told and it needs to be highlighted how women and especially women of color are treated and disbelieved a lot in medical communities (or that WoC are tougher than others and don't experience pain the same way).
However, Porochista was a very unpleasant person to read about, complained a lot, talked about how she was alone and never had anyone around her but was constantly getting support from friends and family (even living in friend's homes and getting access to things that a lot of people don't have).
I also found it really distasteful she would judge this couple, who paid for everything, because the wife was a sex worker and the husband knew and supported it (and made sure she was safe) but Porochista judged them and told her mother about it. Porochista has no room to judge others after everything she's done and it was a point in the story that really stuck out to me.
Additionally, she said at the end that she wrote this book when she was really sick which is fine. However, I really believe an editor should have then done their job to make sure the book flowed, made sense, and helped with the structure. I would pass on this book if you're interested in reading about chronic illness.
molly_dettmann's review against another edition
3.0
While this overall was an interesting memoir about an author suffering from Lyme disease and the side effects, medications, baffled doctors, and the true pain and suffering of chronic illness that is often terribly misunderstood by the general public, it also was a little bit of a slog to get through. The timeline jumps back and forth and could be confusing at times and the writing would go from compelling to convoluted.
adrianlarose's review against another edition
4.0
Though it feels disjointed until 2/3 of the way through, the last third makes you realize why that is the case - and that, in fact, this structure is an effective, thought out and well-executed part of telling her story. Worthwhile reading for anyone who hasn't had to struggle through the often-doubting medical system, and likely to be encouraging - or at least fellow-feeling inspiring - for those who have done and still are doing so.
cheyenneisreading's review against another edition
4.0
I am drained after reading this, I can only imagine how draining her life must be like. An intense read for sure.
600bars's review against another edition
1.0
Alright this review is so goddamn long it’s like i practically wrote my own memoir…… my apologies. This could have been 1,000 words longer so trust me I’m really sparing everyone. I also gave up on editing grammar bc this is goodreads where i read for fun and i was getting school flashbacks. Anyway enjoy.
It is very difficult to write a memoir that is not insufferable or embarrassing, and sadly this book did not escape those fates. I was excited to read this book as I am also a chronically ill brown girl and I have not read anything reflecting my experience. I do not have lyme disease but that was something that was considered bc my random symptoms manifest similarly. I have gone to endless doctors and specialists and have been given a lot of the meds Khakpour mentions. In the end, I realized I had a lot of similarities to this girl, which is maybe why I found this whole thing sorta repulsive because I would never consider an overview of my life interesting enough to merit a memoir. I did a lot of drugs in high school followed by years of psychiatrist approved drug abuse, I have a ton of sickness issues, I went to fancy liberal arts school, I deal w microagressions & racism provoked by the general political climate of the time. Instead of being happy to see myself reflected, this was basically a cringe compilation.
In some class I was in we had to read a Judith butler paper that had something to do with how when you resist the state you are also acknowledging and reinforcing its power. I don’t want to be pretentious by bringing Judith Butler into this, but as someone who has similar struggles as Khakpour I can’t help but think about how memoirs about drug use and mental illness and eating disorders often do the exact same thing: in their effort to be honest and raise awareness about their harrowing experience, they are still reinforcing the ~~tragic glamour~~. This is a paradox present in any memoir about these topics, but it seemed particularly glaring here.
At the beginning of the intro Kakhpour says something about having to go it alone. As someone with chronic illness who looks fairly healthy, I understand how it feels isolating to be sick all the time and have people never truly understand what is going on. It is even more frustrating when both you and your doctors don’t know what is going on. But I can never pretend like I don’t have a constant stream of people taking care of me. She does talk briefly about support systems in one chapter much later, but I was still so surprised at her intro statement. She says “go alone” when the previous paragraphs included casual examples of multiple friends and family members helping her out and checking in with her. I know that it feels lonely, but I cannot imagine pretending like my partners haven’t borne a huge brunt of my daily care. Later, she seems to identify periods of her life by who was taking care of her at the time, so it’s clear she understands interdependence.
There is the weirdest convalescence of privilege and poor-me attitude here, which is complicated bc privilege is never a black and white thing. Kakhpour feels like an outsider for not having as much money and not being white, which is valid, but she is constantly in spaces that REEEEK of privilege. When I first got to college it was super easy to think of myself in identity politicsy terms rather than thinking about the material reality of my life. This was particularly easy bc everyone at my school was crazy wealthy. While I still face many systemic issues for being brown and in chronic pain, im never going to pretend like having enough money to go to college and graduate , not to mention having college educated parents, health insurance, etc. don’t mean anything. It is easy to forget about these things when you’re in a place where the people around you have exponentially greater levels of wealth and access than you do, but it’s also important to realize what it means to have had a path that lead you into a place where you can even make those connections in higher places. I guess what I’m saying is while the obstacles I face due to my race and illnesses are real and im not invalidating myself or her, but I always have to keep in mind my class placement & what i do have.
While invisible illnesses and mental illnesses are excruciating, and this is her space to deal with what has happened to her, there seems to be such a lack of self-awareness about how her conventional beauty and body make her into a tragically beautiful figure rather than simply something to pity. I know that by being thin and beautiful, even if my conventional attractiveness is actually the result of illness, I am afforded care by not only my loved ones, but I literally get care from random strangers (lifting bags at the airport, enormous fuss about fainting spells, etc.) just because I’m small and cute. Kakhpour mentions how being sicker made her more conventionally beautiful but it comes off as glamorizing and heroin-chic.
She also seems to trip and fall into situations that require so much knowledge and hard work to get into. At one point she quite literally trips and falls into a famous writer who grants her access to an agent. The college chapters portray her time at Sarah Lawrence as a four-year bender, and then several chapters later she casually mentions that a full year was spent at Oxford University! As someone who went to elite liberal arts school, I have seen tons and tons of kids who have impressive resumes but are a fucking mess, but I seriously could not believe how every couple paragraphs she would mention some prestigious thing like “my column at paper mag right out of college” or “my northwestern writers workshop” or “johns Hopkins masters program” or something like that. I know it is not interesting or glamorous to talk about the hard work and applications and advisors and connections you need for this lifestyle, but these things felt like they were just peppered in as an afterthought.
Maybe my negative reaction is just because I find acting like a tragic figure so embarrassing I can’t even do it on my finsta any more, so the thought of actually writing an entire memoir makes me squirm. I know that treating pain as pain is important: it is not helpful for me to be like “well there are people with it way worse than me! So I should never complain!”. Feeling guilty doesn’t help anyone & you should always let yourself feel the things you feel, but I just did not expect this book to feel like a long ass finsta tirade. It’s not quite right to talk about taking up space when there’s not a limit to how many narratives or memoirs that can be published, and the space of your own memoir is definitely….your own space. It isn’t like you can’t write a memoir unless you’ve had a super crazy fucked up life, and privilege doesn’t negate tragedy. So I’m not quite sure where my criticism is there, maybe this memoir just came off as particularly self-indulgent. I thought maybe I being too harsh but then on page 223 she meets a random guy at a gym who was also formerly addicted to pills. She says, “The details all seemed generic to me, an after school special, the usual stuff, but somehow it soothed me to hear anything mirror my own demons”. This proved to me that she really thinks there is something unique and special about her pain. In the end this is her experience and her pain is real, but I did not get anything out of reading it. Altho i haven’t opened google docs since I graduated and this book got me to do that, so maybe I can’t say I didn’t get ANYTHING out of it.
It is very difficult to write a memoir that is not insufferable or embarrassing, and sadly this book did not escape those fates. I was excited to read this book as I am also a chronically ill brown girl and I have not read anything reflecting my experience. I do not have lyme disease but that was something that was considered bc my random symptoms manifest similarly. I have gone to endless doctors and specialists and have been given a lot of the meds Khakpour mentions. In the end, I realized I had a lot of similarities to this girl, which is maybe why I found this whole thing sorta repulsive because I would never consider an overview of my life interesting enough to merit a memoir. I did a lot of drugs in high school followed by years of psychiatrist approved drug abuse, I have a ton of sickness issues, I went to fancy liberal arts school, I deal w microagressions & racism provoked by the general political climate of the time. Instead of being happy to see myself reflected, this was basically a cringe compilation.
In some class I was in we had to read a Judith butler paper that had something to do with how when you resist the state you are also acknowledging and reinforcing its power. I don’t want to be pretentious by bringing Judith Butler into this, but as someone who has similar struggles as Khakpour I can’t help but think about how memoirs about drug use and mental illness and eating disorders often do the exact same thing: in their effort to be honest and raise awareness about their harrowing experience, they are still reinforcing the ~~tragic glamour~~. This is a paradox present in any memoir about these topics, but it seemed particularly glaring here.
At the beginning of the intro Kakhpour says something about having to go it alone. As someone with chronic illness who looks fairly healthy, I understand how it feels isolating to be sick all the time and have people never truly understand what is going on. It is even more frustrating when both you and your doctors don’t know what is going on. But I can never pretend like I don’t have a constant stream of people taking care of me. She does talk briefly about support systems in one chapter much later, but I was still so surprised at her intro statement. She says “go alone” when the previous paragraphs included casual examples of multiple friends and family members helping her out and checking in with her. I know that it feels lonely, but I cannot imagine pretending like my partners haven’t borne a huge brunt of my daily care. Later, she seems to identify periods of her life by who was taking care of her at the time, so it’s clear she understands interdependence.
There is the weirdest convalescence of privilege and poor-me attitude here, which is complicated bc privilege is never a black and white thing. Kakhpour feels like an outsider for not having as much money and not being white, which is valid, but she is constantly in spaces that REEEEK of privilege. When I first got to college it was super easy to think of myself in identity politicsy terms rather than thinking about the material reality of my life. This was particularly easy bc everyone at my school was crazy wealthy. While I still face many systemic issues for being brown and in chronic pain, im never going to pretend like having enough money to go to college and graduate , not to mention having college educated parents, health insurance, etc. don’t mean anything. It is easy to forget about these things when you’re in a place where the people around you have exponentially greater levels of wealth and access than you do, but it’s also important to realize what it means to have had a path that lead you into a place where you can even make those connections in higher places. I guess what I’m saying is while the obstacles I face due to my race and illnesses are real and im not invalidating myself or her, but I always have to keep in mind my class placement & what i do have.
While invisible illnesses and mental illnesses are excruciating, and this is her space to deal with what has happened to her, there seems to be such a lack of self-awareness about how her conventional beauty and body make her into a tragically beautiful figure rather than simply something to pity. I know that by being thin and beautiful, even if my conventional attractiveness is actually the result of illness, I am afforded care by not only my loved ones, but I literally get care from random strangers (lifting bags at the airport, enormous fuss about fainting spells, etc.) just because I’m small and cute. Kakhpour mentions how being sicker made her more conventionally beautiful but it comes off as glamorizing and heroin-chic.
She also seems to trip and fall into situations that require so much knowledge and hard work to get into. At one point she quite literally trips and falls into a famous writer who grants her access to an agent. The college chapters portray her time at Sarah Lawrence as a four-year bender, and then several chapters later she casually mentions that a full year was spent at Oxford University! As someone who went to elite liberal arts school, I have seen tons and tons of kids who have impressive resumes but are a fucking mess, but I seriously could not believe how every couple paragraphs she would mention some prestigious thing like “my column at paper mag right out of college” or “my northwestern writers workshop” or “johns Hopkins masters program” or something like that. I know it is not interesting or glamorous to talk about the hard work and applications and advisors and connections you need for this lifestyle, but these things felt like they were just peppered in as an afterthought.
Maybe my negative reaction is just because I find acting like a tragic figure so embarrassing I can’t even do it on my finsta any more, so the thought of actually writing an entire memoir makes me squirm. I know that treating pain as pain is important: it is not helpful for me to be like “well there are people with it way worse than me! So I should never complain!”. Feeling guilty doesn’t help anyone & you should always let yourself feel the things you feel, but I just did not expect this book to feel like a long ass finsta tirade. It’s not quite right to talk about taking up space when there’s not a limit to how many narratives or memoirs that can be published, and the space of your own memoir is definitely….your own space. It isn’t like you can’t write a memoir unless you’ve had a super crazy fucked up life, and privilege doesn’t negate tragedy. So I’m not quite sure where my criticism is there, maybe this memoir just came off as particularly self-indulgent. I thought maybe I being too harsh but then on page 223 she meets a random guy at a gym who was also formerly addicted to pills. She says, “The details all seemed generic to me, an after school special, the usual stuff, but somehow it soothed me to hear anything mirror my own demons”. This proved to me that she really thinks there is something unique and special about her pain. In the end this is her experience and her pain is real, but I did not get anything out of reading it. Altho i haven’t opened google docs since I graduated and this book got me to do that, so maybe I can’t say I didn’t get ANYTHING out of it.