This will definitely be on the purchase list for my high school library. Loved the representation of difficult topics, especially finding love when you have a physical disability.

Thank you to the publishers for my review copy of ELLIE HAYCOCK IS TOTALLY NORMAL.

I appreciate that the author told a story based on her own personal experience with disability, surgery, and ableism, but the finished product didn’t work for me. As I continue to ponder and digest the book, many aspects of the story and even the phrasing used makes me feel like the author hasn’t really reckoned with her own internalized ableism and is still trying to play by an ableist society’s rules rather than upending the status quo.

I’ve seen quite a few negative reviews calling Ellie selfish, stubborn, and unlikeable but that’s not the problem I had with this book. I get that she’s inconsistent and lashes out at times, but considering 1.) she’s dealing with a painful illness that no one can explain, 2.) her doctors aren’t taking her seriously, 3.) she’s had years and years of medical trauma, 4.) her parents aren’t respecting her wishes or allowing her to make decisions about her own medical care, and 5.) she’s treated like a zoo animal whenever she’s in public because of her physical disabilities, I think she had every right to be angry, prickly, and “unlikeable”. Heck, if I was in her situation I would be 200% more emotional and unhinged!

As I read more reviews, I’m starting to feel genuinely worried about people’s lack of empathy. My issue with the book was not with Ellie’s anger, hurt, or trauma, but the way the author seemed to try and paper over all of that in favor of a narrative that says the only person who can “fix” you is you… (This is a direct paraphrase from pg. 284 of the ebook edition.)

I don’t want to dismiss how important it is for you to accept and love yourself. For you to prioritize your healing and make good choices. But you also need things like medical care and community support! You deserve to be respected as a three dimensional human being! You can pull yourself up by the bootstraps all you like, but if you’re facing systemic discrimination/ableism, and no one takes you seriously, you will not be able to “fix” anything.

I felt like it was the other characters who needed more of a reckoning than Ellie… The character development felt uneven and inconsistent. At times, it seemed like they were just a mouthpiece for the author’s message. And to be honest I found that message leaning too close to toxic positivity for my taste. Yes, I do think Ellie needed to be honest with her friends and stop hiding her illness. I do think she needed to embrace her identity and take a larger role in her medical journey. But I felt like the book did us all a disservice by not acknowledging and holding more space for how hard it is to be chronically ill and how hard it is to navigate an ableist world. It’s hard to let people in when you’ve been hurt over and over again! I want to honor the hope in this story, but I think we also have to acknowledge grief and suffering at the same time.

I appreciated the book shining a light on the problems with “special needs mommy bloggers” but Ellie’s conflict with her mom felt like it was wrapped up too easily. The pacing was inconsistent and just as I felt like we were finally starting to get some real development and reckoning, the book ended with a neat little bow. I felt like Ellie’s trauma and mental health were ignored in favor of making a story that was palatable to a non-disabled audience.

I know that no one wants to read or write about COVID, but its absence in this story felt like a gaping black hole that couldn’t be ignored. Ellie’s disability is specifically related to her lungs and she spend the entire book with a mysterious cough. It’s finally decided that she must be extra sensitive to respiratory illness and poor air quality… But there’s no mention of masking. One of the side characters has cancer and is depicted as wearing a medical mask… But Ellie or her friends never mask for him. The story never delves into the actual reality of cancer patients.

I know that this book was based on the author’s experience as a teen which I’m guessing was at least 12 to 14 years ago but this book was published in 2024. Readers, especially chronically ill teens, deserve a book that truly depicts the issues of our time rather than sugar coating it all.

I’m still grappling with this book and the emotions it brought out in me. There are pieces that I connected with and parts that moved me, but overall it felt rang hollow for me and I can’t recommend it.

Instead, if you’re looking for a book about disabled teens falling in love in a hospital, I would recommend SICK KIDS IN LOVE by Hannah Moskowitz. If you’re looking for a book about a disabled teen trying to hide her disabilities, I would recommend CONDITIONS OF A HEART by Bethany Mangle.

I tried to enjoy this title, but I found the characterization to be unrealistic and I swiftly lost interest.

Fantastic debut by Gretchen Schreiber! Loved the story and characters and overall well written and researched.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for this review copy and the opportunity !

This was a great book that i really enjoyed reading

Eleanor Hancock in a teenager who just wants to be normal. Instead she has two separate lives. One at her home school where she has friends, a boyfriend, and is involved with debate/speech competitions, and one where she spends weeks/months in the hospital dealing with her complex medical issues while her mom blogs about her life.

Positives:
I felt the book was very real and portrayed what it would be like to be a medical complex teenager who just wants to live a normal life.
The friends Ellie has at the family stay house during her hospital stay were likeable and added to the storyline.
The plot of the Mother's blog was well done because as a reader I could see both sides.
Satisying ending

Negatives:
Ellie was her own worst enemy at times, but I guess that probably portrays a teenager pretty well.

As a high school teacher I try to read at least one YA novel a month. This is one I would definitely recommend to students.

Gretchen Schreiber's Ellie Haycock Is Totally Normal is a poignant and relatable coming-of-age story that delves into the complexities of living with a chronic illness. Schreiber navigates Ellie's entire identity with subtlety and nuance sometimes missing in this genre. While the novel can be emotionally intense at times, it ultimately offers a message of hope and resilience.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me.

A chronically ill take on the classic coming of age story. I really enjoyed this story - especially the whole subplot with her mom’s blog. I think that’s something we’re going to see a lot of in the future. This book was so full of purely teenager experiences, but with the twist that the main character has a chronic illness. The characters are all so lovely and full of heart, I just had a great time reading this book!

I had to DNF this because I just could not get into it. I thought the medical aspect of it was very intriguing, but the romance was lacking for me personally.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishing Company for providing me this Digital Advanced Readers Copy of the book!

The Breakfast Club meets Five Feet Apart in this big-hearted novel from debut author Gretchen Schreiber.


Thank you Wednesday Books, Macmillan Audio & Netgalley for sending me a review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I was reading this book and I decided to DNF it at 63%. This book is written from the perspective of Ellie Haycock and I don’t like her. I don’t want to spend any more time inside her head.

The author prefaces the book by informing the reader that the story reflects a personal journey and the reader gets a very clear sense of this throughout.
While thinking about how I was going to review this book, I asked myself if I was qualified to do this. How do you review a story about a disorder that you know nothing about or an experience that you could not personally relate to? Here it goes.
Ellie goes through a considerable amount of character growth with respect to the overall experience that she is going through in this story. She is exhibiting symptoms without any apparent reason, but that could be related to her disorder. Having been in and out of the hospital her entire life, she decided it was best that she keep her in and out of hospital lives separate, and that includes the friendships in both. She has her reasons and the reader can relate to that. I found the book very informative on VACTERLs and the lives of people that spend a lot of time within the medical system. I could understand why Ellie would want to keep her lives separate (she does have valid reasons), but I could also see how it was increasingly causing problems that could have been resolved with more open communication. The friendships that she has, and the new ones she makes, are what really make the story enjoyable and the heavy subject matter easier to take in.
Ellie learns how to stand her ground and figure out what she wants out of life. I think this story has a lot to offer, even to people that don’t live with any disorder. It fits in well with other coming of age stories that I have read. I would recommend this book to anyone that enjoys those types of stories or anyone that would like to explore some of the other themes that I have brought up.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for an e-arc of the book. The opinions expressed are honest and my own.

This book was just okay for me. It definitely felt more YA, but has been advertised as okay for middle school. The cover makes it seem like the book will be happy and humorous. It definitely is not. My readers often judge a book by its cover and I think a lot will pick it up thinking it is a light read, when it is quite serious.

This was a great book overall, but I couldn't always connect to Ellie's character. She was so angry a lot of the time and sometimes annoyed me, and while I definitely felt for her, it was just hard to always root for her. Still, I'm so glad a book like this exists for more kids to be able to see themselves in books, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to read it.

(Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Any quotes are taken from an advanced copy and may be subject to change upon final publication.)

Ellie Haycock is Totally Normal by Gretchen Schreiber

Published: March 5, 2024
Wednesday Books
Genre: Teen & Young Adult fiction
KKECReads Rating: 4/5
I received a copy of this book for free and leave my review voluntarily.

Everything about this book was delightful. The characters, the scenarios, and the emotions were beautifully written and delivered.

I love the themes within this book. How normal yet extraordinary Ellie is. It is easy to put yourself in her place, even if you don’t have any medical issues.

I love the total perspective the book encompasses and that it leads with love. The compassion and understanding, yet the dealing with big emotions and struggles, are presented in such an authentic manner.

Embracing every emotion I have, I finished this book in hours. It is a beautiful story.

I recommend this one to teens. It's funny and realistic. I found it a little boring, but I did like the disability representation. It was missing something. I didn't care about the characters. I found Ellie extremely unlikeable. I don't like the way her mom made a living from posting about Ellie online and I don't like the way Ellie treated her friends.

I can say that this novel is written about teens for teens. It is a wonderful read and a great addition to the young adult genre. It is hard to be a teenager, and this book makes it funny, honest, and realistic about how teens have problems and the ways they have to learn to navigate them.

The best way I can think of to describe Ellie Haycock is Totally Normal is "good intentions, lackluster execution."

In many ways, I really appreciate what Gretchen Schreiber tries to do with her debut novel. She gives voice to the disabled kids who are scared, tired, less than inspirational. As someone who straddles the line between child and adult, patient and provider, I appreciate Schreiber's realistic approach to disability and illness. Sometimes there are no easy answers. Sometimes treatment doesn't times. Sometimes doctors and nurses and parents and friends are just humans trying to do their best, and sometimes their best isn't enough. Schreiber pushes past the stereotypical portrayals of disability in media and shows us that sick kids aren't always brave fighters or inspirational martyrs. They aren't paragons of virtue or sad sacks living some kind of second-class life. Sometimes they're just sick and they're scared and they're searching for normalcy. She highlights some of the unique struggles disabled teens face and not only explores the messy complications of trying to grow into your own even as you're fighting your own body, she embraces it. There are just some patient experiences that are universal, and there's something really honest and human about Schreiber's portrayal of trying to navigate life, love, and the labyrinth that is the healthcare system that I'm sure will resonate with many readers.

That was the heart behind the novel; now onto the actual execution. I love the intention behind Ellie Haycock is Totally Normal, but I couldn't help but feel like the story was missing its heart. There was something detached about the whole thing. As much as I wanted to be emotionally invested in Ellie's life, I felt like I was experiencing everything from a distance.

As much as I want to say this was some kind of artistic choice to make the narrative mimic Ellie's tendency to throw up walls, I think this is more of an issue of execution. As much as I hate to say it, there was a lot about the story that was lacking.

In the author's note at the beginning of the book, Schreiber says that "Ellie's story is one I am very familiar with, as it's largely--medically--based on a moment in my life where I, too, faced a mysterious illness. This story is highly specific to my experience."

I can only imagine how personal this story is and how hard it must've been to relive. I wouldn't be surprised if Schreiber unintentionally distanced herself emotionally as a kind of coping mechanism while she wrote. Whether subconsciously or not, there's something about the way she chose to tell the story that didn't work for me. Two of my biggest issues with the storytelling are that there's a lot of telling instead of showing and that the way in which the story is told is jerky and awkward.

We spend a lot of time in Ellie's head or listening to her tell us how the world is, but we don't actually get to see a lot of stuff happen. It's Ellie Haycock's world, and we're just living in it. Unfortunately, Ellie Haycock's is totally jaded and not nearly fleshed out enough, so she comes across as a one-dimensional character who's a little annoying. Her character arc feels more like a small slant, and as much as I like the idea of the little found family of sick kids, it isn't nearly developed enough for me to actually enjoy it. We barely spend any time with the Tumor Support Group, (and don't even get me started on the romance, which I didn't care for at all.)

Back to the storytelling. The pacing is off throughout the entire book. The main issue is that the plot isn't strong enough, so we meander from scene to scene (i.e. internal monologue to internal monologue) with no real purpose or direction. The ending, especially, feels extremely rushed, and the resolution feels rather paltry as a result.

It doesn't help that there are a bunch of inconsistencies throughout the story. In one of the first scenes, we see Ellie getting an IV removed, and while she gripes about how painful they are and how much she hates the whole things, she doesn't once mention her needle phobia which apparently is so bad she needs to be put under before they start her IV.

Ellie Haycock is Totally Normal is such a hard book to review because I really wanted to love it so much more than I did. Schreiber is quite ambitious with everything she attempts to tackle in her debut, and there's a lot of potential; unfortunately, it never quite comes together to create a solid story. As much as I appreciate the way this peels back the curtain and highlights some of the less glamorous aspects of chronic illness and disability and raises issues for discussion, but I found it hard to connect emotionally or to be invested in the story.

I received an eARC from Wednesday Books in exchange for an honest review.

I decided to read and review this book initially because the title piqued my curiosity, and the cover was simply adorable. The story follows Ellie Haycock, a high school student leading a double life reminiscent of Disney's Hannah Montana. By day, she navigates the ups and downs of high school, including a turbulent relationship with her boyfriend and friendships with her peers. By night, she has a separate world at the hospital and community home, where she juggles a different set of friends and a potential romantic interest.

Ellie is determined to keep these two aspects of her life apart, but she faces challenges from her mom's blogging, her friends' relentless optimism, and her own skepticism toward the medical system. She strives to live as normal a life as possible despite these obstacles.

This book would have been right up my alley in early high school. Ellie is a character you genuinely root for, surrounded by a vibrant cast of quirky and supportive friends. Her journey involves not just typical teenage conflicts with her family but also a deep, internal struggle that leads to significant personal growth by the end. I especially appreciated that the story avoided the typical trope of death, focusing instead on complex, nuanced issues that shaped Ellie’s experiences. Her resilience and the strong support network around her make her a truly empowering character

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC

This story is told from Ellie’s point of view, so we get a lot of insight into her mind and motivations, but almost none into anyone else. This definitely adds some issues with perspective.

As the story progressed, I started to not really like Ellie. She pushed everyone away and was so focused on living a normal life, blaming the hospital and her differences for her lack of connections. She wanted to keep her hospital life separate from her normal life, and this included the people. Ellie grows throughout the story and ultimately I did like her in the end.

All of Ellie’s friends are actually pretty great. Both her hospital friends and her school friends want to be part of her entire life, and I am so proud of all of them for ultimately standing up to her and making her fight to have them in her life. Those connections are the best part of the story.

Ellie’s relationship with her parents is much more complicated, especially her mother. I understand Ellie’s desire to control the narrative of her own life, but I also understand her mother’s need to share the experience with her online community. It’s a tough situation, which I would probably have resolved a little differently, but it works for the story.

I like the fact that there was no clear resolution to Ellie’s current medical issues. It’s much more realistic than the stories where there is a miraculous cure in the end. Ellie and her hospital friends will be dealing with their medical issues forever.

Disclaimer: I received a DRC of this book through Net Galley on behalf of the publisher for review consideration. All thoughts and opinions are my own.