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laura_corsi's review against another edition
3.0
O’Rourke starts with her own journey trying to get help with her autoimmune disease and then transitions to discussing the similarities between long Covid and various autoimmune diseases. I really appreciated her scientific rigor in this memoir/exploration. Very interesting.
han_reardonsmith's review against another edition
5.0
Currently moving through my own chaos-quest narrative of chronic illness, as so so many of us are, this was a powerful balm of recognition, grief, anger, and compassion for all sufferers of chronic illness. Even with Meghan’s own discovery of treatments that brought profound positive changes to her state of sickness, she resists any tidy recovery narratives, and turns her attention to the problems with the present practices of industrialised/neoliberalised western medicine rather than to what sufferers could/should do. She also demonstrates the extreme lengths that chronically sick people go to in trying to improve their own health, as they face dismissal and invalidation (and psycho-pathologisation, which is v much my experience) from medical authorities. She also acknowledges the privileges that she comes from, and situated her own struggles in a great field of suffering that disproportionately affects those at the intersections of multiple systematic oppressions.
A sorely needed read/listen for all who are sick, all who are not, and—more than anything—all who are trained to treat us.
A sorely needed read/listen for all who are sick, all who are not, and—more than anything—all who are trained to treat us.
jdreads92's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
shakyra's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
jg12389's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
I really liked the way the author wove in the science and history of the topics with her own journey. I normally like my nonfiction books to be stick pretty strictly to chronological order, and this one didn't necessarily do that but it still worked well and didn't leave me feeling disoriented. I would have loved a more clear critique of capitalism and the way it impacts the medical system, which is mentioned here and there but not fully fleshed out. Overall I really enjoyed this one.