Nervous System by Lina Meruane was a tough read for me. It follows an astrophysicist, Ella, who is struggling to finish her dissertation in her new country, and comes down with a mysterious illness. In fact, all of the members of her family have had some type of major health issue. Mystery medical ailments and/or cancer as a major topic/plot-line cause me to feel a lot of anxiety, so I usually don’t pick up fiction with that as a central point.

The story is told in a really interesting way. We start with Ella at the present moment in time and work backwards to her life in the country of the past. We learn about traumas that have shaped Ella and manifested in different ways for every person in her family. These include loss of a parent, an abusive older sibling, political turmoil in her home country, and life as a migrant. The book was translated from Spanish. I liked that the translator chose to keep Ella called Ella and her partner called El (the Spanish male and female pronouns).

There were a lot of things that worked really well about this book, I am very interested in reading more by this author! The only thing that gives me pause in recommending it is the focus on medical issues. It felt really heavy and was anxiety-inducing for me, but that’s because of my personal reaction to that type of plot line.