SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O'Neal

 

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O'Neal: https://t.co/wHyVsYLO9s

Short Review: 9 out of 10
1/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) December 9, 2021

Short Review (cont): A really delightful story of young adults trying to cope with chronic pains, disabilities, and body issues (and uh werewolves) & learning how to be there for each other as (non-romantic) friends even when their own bodily problems are not the same.
2/3

— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) December 9, 2021

Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses is a young adult novel by debut author Kristen O'Neal, with some fantastical elements (as you might expect from the title, there's a werewolf).  It's the type of novel that's tricky to label, since nearly every major character involved is older than your traditional YA age - they're college aged rather than high school age, and while some could describe this as "coming of age", it's not really "coming of age" as much as a story of development through new circumstances a bit later in life.  

However you want to describe it, it's a novel that's absolutely delightful, as it focuses on younger adults with chronic pain and disabilities trying to deal with those pains in their own lives and how others treat them because of it - a group that is often not featured in novels I read.  It's also a story of similar people reaching out and bonding to help themselves cope with such problems - about how to deal with a body that won't reliably cooperate with one's mind and desires - and the struggles of trying to be there for someone without making them seem lesser.  And it's also an incredibly fun and often hilariously written novel about online friends turning into more - and not romantically! - about growing together, struggling with each other and together, and making up and moving forward.  There's no antagonist here, even if there is a werewolf, but instead there's just a novel that's absolutely delightful, charming and entertaining and well...true.   

-------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------
Priya's life seemed mapped out - she graduated high school in New Jersey and went to Stanford, set to be on the pre-med track there at school.  And then she was bit by a tick and contracted Lyme Disease....and the pain from Chronic Lyme Disease failed to go away even after the disease did.  It grew to be so bad that she withdrew from school and now lives at home back in New Jersey, and makes her wonder if there is anything she will be able to do going forward - all the while her well-meaning family babies her and makes her feel worse. 

The only thing that has made it all bearable has been her friend Brigid, who she found writing similar posts on Tumblr about monthly pains, and who seems to understand and with whom she can crack jokes and share the feelings of pain.  And when Brigid points her to a few others online who feel the same, they both wind up joining a Discord server of people with other chronic illnesses...and their communications, jokes and support bring some brightness back to Priya's life.  

But when Brigid makes a cryptic post and then goes AWOL online for three days, Priya takes a chance and steals the family car to check up on her to make sure she's okay.  There she finds the truth - Brigid's disorder is an uncontrollable bout of lycanthropy, one which neither of them has any idea how to deal with.  Soon Priya and Brigid will be getting together not just online, but also in person to try and figure out their respective problems...but is there really anything to solve, or will they only break themselves trying?
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Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses is a really delightful novel, that is told mainly from Priya's point of view, with frequent moments where it instead shifts to chat logs from Priya and Brigid's tumblr messages, their text messages, and the Discord group for chronic illness sufferers.  All of these characters and their dialogues are incredibly delightful (there's also an animal control guy who is a third wheel to the Brigid/Priya relationship who is a ton of fun to add to the mix).  The dialogue is often hilarious, with the characters often being irreverent, even while dealing with some real serious situations.  I'm going to talk about the serious themes and whatnot that are the focus of this book below, but I don't want it to get lost in this review - this book manages to deal with those issues while always being fun and humorous alongside them.  

And this book explores those serious themes really well, dealing with chronic illness, feeling uncomfortable in one's own body*, and dealing with family and people from one's before-life who don't really know how to handle the new situation.  Priya and her friends in the Discord group may all have different maladies, ranging from genetic disorders from birth, to maladies that first spring up later in life, to ones in which no doctor seems to be able to diagnose (which of course only makes it more frustrating).  But through their talking with each other they are able to find others who understand their pain and the struggle with dealing with a world that doesn't know how to deal with them - whether that be by providing accommodations or just by not understanding when comments about their disability are patronizing or hurtful.  

*The members of the group chat include trans, non-binary and otherwise queer individuals as well as cis-hetero members, although it never draws a direct connection to its themes and being trans.  The book never tries to make the conditions within, such as the lycanthropy, a direct metaphor, although the metaphor is definitely there, especially with the struggles of one of the members of the discord group* 

Priya's family for instance does really care and is honestly wonderful - her parents care for her, her brother has a fun band, and her younger sister is taking seriously her school play and clearly developing feelings for the girl who's her rival (a really cute super minor subplot).  And yet none of them can understand how to approach Priya's pain, and how Priya can't simply try to push it to go on to her old life, or that she might not even want to.  And so they make a lot of mistakes trying to help her, something that Priya struggles with for a while, until they do get a bit better at communicating how they care for her as Priya's struggles come in other forms.  

And then there's Priya's relationship with Brigid which really is the center of this book.  When Priya discovers Brigid's lycanthropy, her first instinct is to try to help Brigid and to try and research a way to help Brigid understand and deal with it better.  But she too misunderstands how such a response is just like those of others towards her own condition, even as Brigid tries to hide how much this line of inquiry hurts her, and drives Brigid to dangerous approaches that threaten her own life because it increases her desperation to get better...something that obviously hurts Priya as well, and leads to them suffering a climactic moment of breakup.  Their relationship is never romantic, and it has ups and downs, but it works so well (and the two have tremendous chemistry and their dialogue is often hilarious).  

It's a story about how coping with chronic pain, or any bodily difficulty is incredibly difficult and can change how one tries to deal with life, and how that's okay, with the characters eventually coming to terms through each other that there may not be a way to be totally better, but there is a way to still live, even if that life is very different from the one they may have once envisioned, or that others may have envisioned for one another.  There are no antagonists here, but what there is a story that rings true and is just delightfully charming even as it deals with these serious issues.  Just highly recommended for sure.