LYCANTHROPY AND OTHER CHRONIC ILLNESSES

In O’Neal’s debut, a girl with Lyme disease attempts to cure her best friend—who’s a werewolf.

Nineteen-year-old narrator Priya Radhakrishnan feels like Lyme disease has stolen her life. Instead of studying pre-med at Stanford, she’s back home in New Jersey with her loving and protective parents, struggling with debilitating fatigue, mental fog, and joint pain. Fortunately, she and her online friend Brigid—who’s reluctant to share details about her own illness—find comfort and camaraderie in a virtual chronic-illness support group, whose members navigate diagnoses ranging from endometriosis to fibromyalgia. Though the members’ personalities are nearly indistinguishable, their wisecracking chats and texts sympathetically acknowledge the physical and mental tolls of dealing with both chronic illness and others’ misconceptions. When Brigid ominously goes offline, Priya tracks her down and discovers her diagnosis: She’s a werewolf, and she’s getting worse. Can Priya help Brigid find a cure before she becomes a wolf permanently? More medical than paranormal, Brigid’s lycanthropy sensitively explores such issues as treatment risks, independence, and identity. A somewhat anticlimactic ending is mitigated by the love and support suffusing Priya’s and Brigid’s interactions with the group and each other, reassuring readers living with health conditions that they’re not alone. Most characters default to White. Priya is the daughter of South Indian immigrants; there is diversity of sexual orientation and gender identity among the cast.

A heartwarming, quirky take on chronic illness in all its hairy detail.