bella613's Reviews (551)

This was incredible. I really love Klara (and Rick, although most of the other humans in the story are rather awful). The world building is great and Klara's view of the world is quite something. The voice of the narrator is easy to listen to. 
I felt happy and excited at the beginning of the book, and while my enjoyment didn't change, I definitely noticed the happiness of the story deflating gradually through the entire book. It's a little slow moving in some parts but in a thoughtful way, not boring.
The ending was extremely sad. 

I wish I could know what happened to Rosa in order to properly mourn.

The first half of the book was 2☆ and the second half was 4☆ so I went in between. 
This was recommended to me by my sister ♡

It was, as I was warned about this author, ~explodey~ (lol).

I liked the sister dynamics and healing of their relationship in the story (not similar to our relationship irl at all, I just liked that)

I didn't like the writing style, the narrator, or really the main character all that much. It started off wayyyy too slow and the narrator sounded disinterested and tired which made me feel disinterested and tired. But the story was interesting and got a lot better during the last third of the book. 

Slice-of-life for a child of immigrants and ICU attending at the beginning of covid-19. 
Well written but not a lot to keep me interested beyond the main character herself. 

I checked this book out with my best friend in mind, and very quickly saw three of my sisters, another friend, coworkers, and even myself in the description of WOMI. 
This book is so important. There were a few small things I didn't necessarily agree with but then the author circled back and clarified, and it clicked. We all have misconceptions and biases and prejudices toward others, and toward ourselves. Learning how to advocate for my own health is an opportunity for growth that I have yet to feel truly grateful for, even though I fully comprehend the ways it's made me better. This book, and the authors life tale, is a story of searching, a story of pain and misunderstanding, of being left behind and overlooked... but it's also a story of self discovery and fighting for our communities. A story of hope. And I recommend it to everyone.

I will mention: I hate the description of the book. (This is not a criticism of the book or author but I want to add some stuff here for those who might just read the description or the first bit of the book, and feel like I did at first) The description doesn't summarize the book all that badly, but it takes what she said about doctors dismissing her and not listening to her, and changes that into "they thought she was crazy". I hate this because I AM, arguably, clinically crazy. I very much dislike the phrase "all in her head". Not because it's unfairly putting down the patient (which it is) but mainly because it strongly implies that psychological maladies are somehow less-- less serious, less urgent, less physical, less believable, less important, less painful. It is, obviously, silly to say that a broken axle on a car is an engine problem. But the engine runs the car and isnt underestimated. I hope that anyone with psychological symptoms can also see themselves as WOMI/MOMI. I see myself, just like the author, as level 4-5 depending on the day or week or month. And I do not have a physcial mysterious illness. I dont have an auto immune disease, or a parasite, or fybromyalgia or SIBO or POTS or chronic pain. But my body is attacking itself and I am often dismissed by doctors who have said "perfection is the enemy of good" (translate: you're not dying so deal with it) The brain is arguably the area that gets the most abuse and sickness in a person's lifetime and has the most serious issues. It's clear that the brain is part of the body and psychological and physical symptoms go hand in hand. The author does a good job of mentioning that often a patient can tell if their problem originates in brain or body, and should be trusted. But many symptoms mentioned of the WOMI are caused by psychological factors (not even gonna bring up eating disorder stats, when speaking of gut issues, but MANY ED patients regularly and compulsively lie to their doctors and the doctors who blatantly accept these lies are doing more a disservice than those who look into it for themselves imo) Since she writes of her own struggles which don't include much for psychological diagnoses, I wanted to include these thoughts. 
Just because depression, anxiety, ED'S, and other psychological problems together affect nearly the entire population doesn't mean that a doctor should prescribe an antidepressant or sedative to every patient with nonspecific complaints and move on. But it isn't always entirely off the point to look into brain chemistry when experiencing physcial symptoms, and doctors who do so are not bad doctors. Of course patient history, symptoms, and responses to medication should be the first indications, not statistics. But the main thing I want to say that the book does not, is that patients who experience these psychological problems have the same "journey in" as other WOMI's and may have just as much a struggle getting a real solution. If this is you, I see you. I hear you. 

Cute story! 
Disliked the narrators but the writing was decent and the characters endearing. 

I think I would have understood and liked this book a lot better if I had read it physically when I was more awake. I realized this pretty quickly into the book, but kept with it because its due tomorrow. I listen to most of my audiobooks at work and have been working night shift lately, so it felt more like a fever dream than a story. It was a bit overwhelming at the beginning and then felt like nothing was happening, yet I still couldn't keep up with it. I think it's a challenging book that needs more attention than I had to give at the moment. I'd say it felt like 2.5☆ but I rated it 3.5☆ because I know where I'm mentally at tonight and that it was more than I could handle. At some point in the future I'll try and get my hands on a physical copy to read. 
I do love Woolf's writing and signature introspective prose-like description of her characters' thoughts, feelings, and motivations.