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informative
sad
slow-paced
The most glaring flaw of Invisible is its failure to realize how fat discrimination impacts the healthcare and societal treatment of young women. In the final chapter, fat is euphemistically referred to but ultimately packaged under societal pressure to conform to beauty standards. The author makes no move to analyze how her thinness has afforded her and her interviewees better treatment than if they'd been larger: how fat is often pathologized as its own "chronic illness" and used as an excuse (much like youth!) to ignore more fatal conditions until patients finally succumb.
Ironically, the author recounts a time when someone was informed of her conditions and responded with, "Well, at least you're thin!" If only she'd taken the poorly thought-out compliment to heart and reflected upon what that truly meant for her life and her treatment. It could've transformed the book into something even more insightful and mindful of many facets of identity.
Ironically, the author recounts a time when someone was informed of her conditions and responded with, "Well, at least you're thin!" If only she'd taken the poorly thought-out compliment to heart and reflected upon what that truly meant for her life and her treatment. It could've transformed the book into something even more insightful and mindful of many facets of identity.
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
It’s been a long time since a book spoke to me as deeply and personally as Michele Lent Hirsch’s “Invisible: How Young Women With Serious Health Issues Navigate Work, Relationships, and the Pressure to Seem Just Fine”.
This book is an exploration of what it’s like to be a young woman living with a disability or a chronic illness. Full of stories from young women who have lived with, struggles with, and navigated their pain, their illness, and their disability, this book touched on being a young Sick woman in ways that nothing I’d ever read before had.
Full of stories that are part heartbreaking, part heartwarming, reading like a partial memoir of the author’s own experiences, this book contained relatable and beautiful words by other young women, as well as practical and pragmatic advice on how to navigate romantic relationships, HR, and nosy strangers. I love this book so much, that I found myself highlighting and underlining whole passages. I found myself crying on the train, blinking away tears so I could continue reading. I found myself bringing this book up in conversation - quoting it, citing it, recommending it. I’ve taken to sharing this book with some of my closest friends who have also lived with chronic pain or illness, and who have also been able to connect so deeply with it.
This book made me feel so SEEN in a way that is so rare for me - a fat young woman of colour, with a chronic illness.
A must read.
This book is an exploration of what it’s like to be a young woman living with a disability or a chronic illness. Full of stories from young women who have lived with, struggles with, and navigated their pain, their illness, and their disability, this book touched on being a young Sick woman in ways that nothing I’d ever read before had.
Full of stories that are part heartbreaking, part heartwarming, reading like a partial memoir of the author’s own experiences, this book contained relatable and beautiful words by other young women, as well as practical and pragmatic advice on how to navigate romantic relationships, HR, and nosy strangers. I love this book so much, that I found myself highlighting and underlining whole passages. I found myself crying on the train, blinking away tears so I could continue reading. I found myself bringing this book up in conversation - quoting it, citing it, recommending it. I’ve taken to sharing this book with some of my closest friends who have also lived with chronic pain or illness, and who have also been able to connect so deeply with it.
This book made me feel so SEEN in a way that is so rare for me - a fat young woman of colour, with a chronic illness.
A must read.
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Author Michelle Hirsch writes with authority on the phenomenon of women with severe health issues who downplay the seriousness of their diseases. She provides readers with examples of women who mask or soften how they are really feeling, all in order to either keep their current jobs or to be taken seriously. A timely topic, and a book that women of all ages should put on their to-be read list.
I read a review copy and was not compensated.
I read a review copy and was not compensated.
What an incredibly important topic. I am extremely glad that this was published and exists in the world. However, this book lacked the structure, arc, and overall cohesion I desired that would also serve to lend the topic a driving aim. I got to the end and felt like I read a long narrative list of terrible things that happen to young women in the healthcare system. I have a suspicion that the majority of people who snatch up this book will be young women with health issues and I felt like it was instead speaking to people who don’t understand (especially all the grizzly details of assault and sexual assault).
so freaking important. addresses all kinds of disabilities and all kinds of women, talks about queerness and disability, dating/marriage/children, friendship, doctors not believing you, body image, and all the things that surround women like me and not like me.