Illness Fiction

Even though the cancer should be far behind him, Jeffrey still worries that it will return. He’s got normal teen stuff to deal with, too - friends, parents, girls, school. Normally, he’d ask his older brother, Steven, for advice. But Steven, always the trusty, responsible one, is finally rebelling and has taken off to Africa to join a drumming circle and “find himself”. Jeffrey feels abandoned. Meanwhile, his best friend, Tad, is hatching some kind of secretive, crazy plan involving eighth-grade graduation.....

Three years ago mortuary cosmetologist Phoebe Glassman lost her husband in a tragic accident. No longer the hopeful wife and mother she once was, Phoebe is disappearing into her grief and into the quietude of her job - restoring to the dead the illusion of life. Then the body of a woman named Pauline Steele arrives in the mortuary, and for Phoebe, everything changes. Pauline is unmistakably Phoebe’s mirror image and bears an alarmingly familiar tattoo. Even more startling is that among Pauline’s effects is a faded photograph of Phoebe.

A special needs teacher who lived in 24 different places during her childhood, debut novelist Sarah Dooley taps her expertise and channels her experiences for this powerful tale. Livvie Owen is autistic. She doesn’t feel things the same way her parents and sister do, and she’s confused why her family has to keep moving from one home to another. There is only one place where Livvie ever felt truly happy. She wants to return there now, but there’s a problem. Livvie burned that house to the ground.

Jake volunteers at a nursing home because he likes helping people. He likes skating and singing, playing Bingo and Name That Tune, and reading mysteries and comics aloud to his teachers. He also likes avoiding people his own age . . . and the cruelty of mirrors . . . and food. Jake has read about kids like him in books—the weird one, the outsider—and would do anything not to be that kid, including shrink himself down to nothing. But the less he eats, the bigger he feels. How long can Jake punish himself before he truly disappears?

Danny Littleton feels like he is turning into a dinosaur every time he goes to the doctor's office. After all, dinosaurs don't have to be afraid of anything, including having diabetes. The doctor understands how Danny feels. He and Danny talk, and later, in school, Danny realizes that if he pretends he is a dinosaur, he can get up in front of the class and explain his diabetes.

From a comic mastermind comes this brilliant collection of stories. Three teenagers believe they are witches. A woman defaces a local billboard. A bored landlord tries to influence his son's best friend. A cul-de-sac WhatsApp group discusses eggs at length. A heavily pregnant woman finds a way to time travel and a girl discovers joy on a stolen bicycle. Each tale paints a life in miniature and offers an escape chute from the catastrophes of modern life.

Diagnosed as severely autistic at the age of three, Tito, nearly nonverbal, was brought up by his loving mother Soma, who taught him to read English and challenged him to write his own stories. The initial result was The Mind Tree, published in 2003, which Tito wrote between the ages of eight and 11. The Gold of the Sunbeams is an equally impressive, beautiful collection of stories, each prefaced by a charming note from Tito explaining how the story came into being.

After a routine pap smear in 2009, Angela Schmidt Fishbaugh discovered that she had tested positive for BRCA1, a genetic trait that predisposed her to breast and ovarian cancer. After her initial shock - and subsequent to consulting with medical professionals, friends, and family - the proactive mother and teacher embarked on a mission to nip the issue in the bud.

Alex es atrevida, caótica y seductora. Sabe cómo hacerse con cualquier chica... pero su vida está patas arriba y su novia la acaba de dejar. Molly lo tiene todo bajo control, pero acaba de mudarse a la universidad y tiene que abrirse al mundo... Su única amiga, hasta el momento, ha sido su madre. Cuando Alex descubre quién es el crush secreto de Molly la noche antes de que empiecen las clases, deciden formar equipo: Alex ayudará a Molly a enamorar a la chica de sus sueños, y Molly ayudará a Alex a recuperar a su ex.

Maxine and Jonah meet in the canned goods aisle just as California is going into lockdown. Max’s part-time job as a personal grocery shopper is about to transform into a hellish gauntlet. Jonah’s preexisting anxiety is about to become an epic daily struggle. As Max and Jonah get to know each other through FaceTime dates, socially distanced playground hangs, and the escalating heartbreaks of the pandemic, they’re pushed apart by what they don’t share and pulled closer by what they do.

À l'âge de huit ans, je me suis réveillée sourde. Je m'étais endormie une nuit d'hiver, sur le plancher de ma cabane dans l'arbre. Personne ne sait ce qui est arrivé ni pourquoi j'étais cachée là. Moi-même, je l'ignore. Après avoir passé la moitié de ma vie dans le silence le plus profond, voilà que, lors d'un party entre amis, je réentends pour la première fois.

At their newly founded school, Samuel Hood and his daughter, Caroline, promise a groundbreaking education for young women. But Caroline has grave misgivings. After all, her own unconventional education has left her unmarriageable and isolated, unsuited to the narrow roles afforded women in 19th-century New England. When a mysterious flock of red birds descends on the town, Caroline alone seems to find them unsettling. But it's not long before the assembled students begin to manifest bizarre symptoms: Rashes, seizures, headaches, verbal tics, night wanderings. One by one, they sicken.

Ollie and Moritz are two teenagers who will never meet. Each of them lives with a life-affecting illness. Contact with electricity sends Ollie into debilitating seizures while Moritz has a heart defect and is kept alive by an electronic pacemaker. If they did meet, Ollie would seize, but turning off the pacemaker would kill Moritz. Through an exchange of letters, the two boys develop a strong bond of friendship that becomes a lifeline during dark times.

Even under the most normal circumstances, high school can be a painful and confusing time. Unfortunately, Lilianna’s circumstances are anything but normal. Only a few people know what caused her sudden change from model student to the withdrawn pessimist she has become, but her situation isn’t about to get any better. When people begin coming down with a quick-spreading illness that doctors are unable to treat, Lil’s worst fears are realized.

When Walela is diagnosed at twenty-three with advanced stage blood cancer, they're suddenly thrust into the unsympathetic world of tubes and pills, doctors who don’t use their correct pronouns, and hordes of "well-meaning" but patronizing people offering unsolicited advice as they navigate rocky personal relationships and share their story online.

Eighteen-year-old twins Adina and Tovah have little in common besides their ambitious nature. Viola prodigy Adina yearns to become a soloist - and to convince her music teacher he wants her the way she wants him. Overachiever Tovah awaits her acceptance to Johns Hopkins, the first step on her path toward med school and a career as a surgeon. But one thing could wreck their carefully planned futures: a genetic test for Huntington's, a rare degenerative disease that slowly steals control of the body and mind.

Seventeen-year-old Chloe had a plan: work hard, get good grades, and attend a top-tier college. But after she collapses during cross-country practice and is told that she needs a new heart, all her careful preparations are laid to waste. Eight months after her transplant, everything is different. Stuck in summer school with the underachievers, all she wants to do now is grab her surfboard and hit the waves - which is strange, because she wasn’t interested in surfing before her transplant. (It doesn’t hurt that her instructor, Kai, is seriously good-looking.)

See, as fast as the human race is evolving, we still haven’t discovered a more efficient way to help our brains relax and achieve a calmer mental state than good ole storytelling. A well-told story takes your mind off plans, worries, and recapitulations, providing a safety net beneath your brain, like the pillow under your skull.

With the assassination of Telyan’s king, the time for peace has passed. Determined to make up for his failure to procure the stardust, Helos finds work as a healer at Fendolyn’s Keep, the military garrison to which Telyan’s exiled royals—and half its civilians—have fled. Racing against the Fallow Throes’ ticking clock, he endeavors to repair his relationship with Prince Finley and fight off the gathering shadows in his head, as the base around him prepares for war.

Kate Croy is secretly engaged to Merton Denscher, a journalist who lacks money. By chance, Kate befriends Milly, an American heiress, and learns she is suffering from a fatal illness. Kate devises a scheme to maximize their combined assets: she encourages Merton to take an interest in Milly and marry her. Kate intends to make him a rich widower whom she herself can marry. But such well-laid plans are not enough for the subtlety of the heart.