CONDITIONS OF A HEART

A high schooler’s nondisabled persona threatens to unravel when she’s suspended from school.

After ableism destroyed a childhood friendship, Brynn Kwan has ensured that nobody at Pineland Prep knows she has Ehlers–Danlos syndrome, a degenerative genetic disorder that causes frequent joint dislocations. She’s perfected her Pretend Brynn persona, hiding her pain and fatigue. Brynn’s even ghosted her (now-ex) boyfriend, Oliver De Luca, rather than reveal an upcoming surgery. But when she’s unjustly suspended and banned from senior-year activities (including serving as class president) after intervening in a fight, she feels lost without her busy social facade. Worse, a life skills class project forces her and Oliver to be hypothetical future roommates, juggling budgets and careers. Brynn’s future, given her uncertain prognosis, is unpredictable. Attending college—or even finishing high school—seems pointless when EDS has destroyed her dream of becoming an orthopedic surgeon. But as her feelings for Oliver resurface, pretense and reality blur. Could Oliver love the real Brynn? Mangle, who has EDS herself, vividly portrays the unpredictability of chronic illness in a disorienting post-Covid world where illness is no longer normalized. Wry internal banter with various body parts leavens Brynn’s anxious, discouraged narration. Though some secondary characters feel two-dimensional, the tension between Brynn and her overprotective younger sister is uncomfortably realistic, and Brynn’s bond with her Korean American dad, who also has EDS, is heartwarming (Brynn’s mom is white). Oliver reads white; there’s ethnic and racial diversity among secondary characters.

Poignant and insightful.