Take a photo of a barcode or cover
chronicallybookish 's review for:
The Moth Girl
by Heather Kamins
Quick Stats
Age Rating: 13+
Over All: 4 stars
Plot: 3/5
Characters: 3/5
Setting: 4/5
Writing: 3.5/5
Disability Rep: 5/5
Special thanks to Penguin Teen for sending me a copy of this book! All thoughts and opinions reflected in this review are my own.
I have mixed feelings on this book. It was good. The chronic illness representation, and the portrayal of becoming sick, getting a diagnosis, and everything that comes along with that was incredibly well done. You can tell it’s own voices. But there just wasn’t really anything outside of that.
The book is super short. Like 250 pages. But I think that’s a good thing, because it’s also very slow paced. The narration is 80-90% introspection and internal monologue. Outside of the chronic illness, there isn’t really a plot. We just kind of float along with Anna (see what I did there?) through her life. There’s no tension. There’s no true driving force. And I liked it and felt engaged with it, because I lived it and I related to it and saw myself in it, but I think it will have a very hard time keeping the attention of a non-chronically ill reader.
Some reviews seem to dislike that the illness used is fictive. I don’t have anything against that. The authors reasoning for why she did that makes a lot of sense to me. Able bodied people do not understand what it’s like to suddenly become sick and have your entire world upside down—but they think that they do. They have an idea of what it’s like, which isn’t inherently bad, but it’s usually not correct, either. There is a surrealness to becoming chronically ill that an able bodied person cannot understand, so Heather Kamins wrote about a surreal disease to try to relay that feeling, and I think that was a really interesting take.
Also, disabled authors don’t have to write about their own disabilities. Writing about her experiences while using a fictitious disease could have been healing. It could have been a way to process the trauma that comes with becoming chronically ill without having to directly face it.
Disabled people owe you nothing. Some of the reviews saying they wished she’d written about her own chronic illness just really didn’t sit right with me. There is so much trauma around becoming sick and everything that comes after. Medical trauma from doctors, sure, but it’s also so traumatizing in general to have your body turn against you. Like, you traumatize yourself, which is hard to express in a way that makes sense, but that’s how it feels. And however someone choses to relay or express that trauma is valid and acceptable and you are not entitled to more.
I highly recommend this book, whether you are abled or disabled. It may be a little slow or boring if you can’t directly relate, but it’s so important. It expresses what it is like to go through the onset of a chronic illness beautifully. And I think that’s something everybody needs to read about more.
Age Rating: 13+
Over All: 4 stars
Plot: 3/5
Characters: 3/5
Setting: 4/5
Writing: 3.5/5
Disability Rep: 5/5
Special thanks to Penguin Teen for sending me a copy of this book! All thoughts and opinions reflected in this review are my own.
I have mixed feelings on this book. It was good. The chronic illness representation, and the portrayal of becoming sick, getting a diagnosis, and everything that comes along with that was incredibly well done. You can tell it’s own voices. But there just wasn’t really anything outside of that.
The book is super short. Like 250 pages. But I think that’s a good thing, because it’s also very slow paced. The narration is 80-90% introspection and internal monologue. Outside of the chronic illness, there isn’t really a plot. We just kind of float along with Anna (see what I did there?) through her life. There’s no tension. There’s no true driving force. And I liked it and felt engaged with it, because I lived it and I related to it and saw myself in it, but I think it will have a very hard time keeping the attention of a non-chronically ill reader.
Some reviews seem to dislike that the illness used is fictive. I don’t have anything against that. The authors reasoning for why she did that makes a lot of sense to me. Able bodied people do not understand what it’s like to suddenly become sick and have your entire world upside down—but they think that they do. They have an idea of what it’s like, which isn’t inherently bad, but it’s usually not correct, either. There is a surrealness to becoming chronically ill that an able bodied person cannot understand, so Heather Kamins wrote about a surreal disease to try to relay that feeling, and I think that was a really interesting take.
Also, disabled authors don’t have to write about their own disabilities. Writing about her experiences while using a fictitious disease could have been healing. It could have been a way to process the trauma that comes with becoming chronically ill without having to directly face it.
Disabled people owe you nothing. Some of the reviews saying they wished she’d written about her own chronic illness just really didn’t sit right with me. There is so much trauma around becoming sick and everything that comes after. Medical trauma from doctors, sure, but it’s also so traumatizing in general to have your body turn against you. Like, you traumatize yourself, which is hard to express in a way that makes sense, but that’s how it feels. And however someone choses to relay or express that trauma is valid and acceptable and you are not entitled to more.
I highly recommend this book, whether you are abled or disabled. It may be a little slow or boring if you can’t directly relate, but it’s so important. It expresses what it is like to go through the onset of a chronic illness beautifully. And I think that’s something everybody needs to read about more.