Thank you for giving me the chance to read this book! I loved the relationships between the characters. With two tween daughters, I can painfully relate to the texting and words unsaid and trying to be best for our daughters when they want nothing more...and knowing their friendships are the most important.
I appreciate and value any story that teaches me about something new - a rare disease, how debate team works, etc.
This was a solid read and I look forward to more from this author.
Thanks!

Thank you to St Martins Press and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

I will happily leave a review for this when the racist remarks by one of their employees is addressed. I want to support the author, but also want to know they don’t support this behavior.

this would be a good read for a teenager- i just felt like i couldn't connect to the characters as much as i wanted to. but i did enjoy it and i did learn- it was a quick read.

This is a great one if you enjoyed Five Feet Apart. Very interesting story that drew me in. The FMC is rather bratty (though she does have a lot to deal with - but so do the other characters) but she grows up and learns a lesson in the end, as does her mom.

Ellie Haycock leads a double life. On one hand, she's a normal teenager with a group of friends, a speech club, and a boyfriend. On the other hand, she was born with VACTERL, a cluster of congenital defects that requires frequent medical attention. Ellie tries her best to keep her two lives separate, not wanting to be seen as the "sick kid." This takes a toll on her relationships and her own well-being. When her two worlds collide, Ellie fights to keep them apart and herself together. Along the way, she discovers the value of letting people in and learns that there is strength in vulnerability.

I am so impressed with this book! The author, Gretchen Schreiber, wrote it from the heart and personal experience, as she was born with a variation of VACTERL. The way she portrays Ellie and her friends, who have various illnesses, anomalies, and disabilities, is commendable. Instead of portraying them with pity or sadness, they are showcased as typical teens who are struggling to survive. The narrative style is highly relatable and engrossing, and I appreciate the fact that the main character is flawed, which makes her more relatable and authentic to me. Overall, I loved reading this book!

I received this book as a digital advanced reader copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Review redacted until such time that Wednesday Books and Saint Martin's Press issues a public statement regarding the pro-genocide sentiments that was shared by their Associate Marketing Manager immediately upon their promotion into this role. As an imprint that "is committed to a diverse readership hungry for stories that speak to them." I find it curious that you have a staunch racist elevated to one of the highest marketing positions in your brand.

This book has some good messaging around the importance of having ownership over your own story and autonomy, as well as the value of true friendship. However, I found Ellie to be so gosh darn stubborn and I found myself constantly frustrated with her lack of ability to try to see some of the good around her. She was her own worst enemy at times and it seemed like her character transformation was a bit rushed at the end.

All in all, I was left wishing there was a bit more depth to this novel. It certainly has the potential, just missed the mark for me.

I received this book as an e-arc through NetGalley. So thank you for the opportunity to read and review this novel. This was an uncorrected digital proof, so I can’t judge on that- but there were some instances when the storyline got a little jumbled for me or just the flow of events kinda jumped and I was a bit confused.

Overall, I thought the story was good and I didn’t mind the book, but there were some things I didn’t like. I loved Ellie’s friends- they were the best part of the story and they truly tried to help Ellie. I’m not personally familiar with the lifestyle of having a lifelong disability or a chronic illness, though I work with families who do go through this. So seeing the possibilities of what they might be dealing with was an eye opener for me. I also thought the addition of having the mom be a disability blogger and how Ellie felt about it was an interesting perspective, very on point when there are so many influencer mom who document every moment of their child’s life.

So what didn’t I like? The biggest one was the main character. She frustrated me because of her stubbornness and negativity and just unwillingness to attempt to give people, who very clearly love her and are in her corner, a chance. It was very hard to root for her when she was her biggest obstacle. Her negativity was tough to deal with throughout the book and so it affected my overall opinion. The book definitely has potential and I feel that it may really speak to some people, but it just didn’t hit for me.

What an eye opening story about medical challenges paired with the pressures of social media. From the first few pages when Ellie's mom described herself as the medical team's fearless leader, I knew we were in for it. While the internet can be great in bringing people together with shared experiences, it can be dangerous with negative mental impacts as well - especially if we are not the ones in control of what is posted about ourselves. I really liked that the focus of this story was on Ellie's diagnosis to give that community a voice while still revolving around common teen themes/challenges that allow others to connect in other ways. I think my 7th graders would love this one and plan on adding it to my library once it's out!

This is a hard review to do. The author tells us that down of the experiences talked about in the book are similar to experiences she had in her own life, how can you say anything negative after that.
This is a good opportunity to see things from a very different point of view than the one that I, or those close to me have experienced. I think given the right audience this could be an entertaining yet educational read.
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this eARC in exchange for my opinion

Gretchen is an absolute force to reckon with. This book is beautiful and heart wrenching and so so important. I hope everyone reads this, they need to!

My Summary
Ellie Haycock Is Totally Normal by Gretchen Schreiber is just my kind of book: the main character(s) have some sort of medical condition/ chronic illness/ disability and yet it touches on everyday stuff like friendship, love, self esteem, family dynamics etc. in Ellie Haycock is totally normal we meet Ellie, a high schooler with a rare genetic condition that affects both her physical appearance and her internal organs. Her mom runs a blog that has chronicled Ellie’s life from the very beginning. it serves as a way for her to connect with others and raise money to support and raise awareness about the things families experience when raising a child with a disability. This is a huge source of frustration and hurt for Ellie though (more on that later). The reader quickly learns that Ellie is experiencing persistent breathing issues that her local doctor can’t figure out. Therefore she and her mom are going to see a specialist and stay at “The Home” (essentially a Ronald McDonald House) for a bit. The reader also learns that Ellie is very deliberate in keeping her “hospital life” and “life-life” separate. She has hospital friends and non-hospital friends and they don’t know anything about each other.

The majority of the book features her hospital best friend Caitlin as well as a few other teens with varying medical conditions staying at “The Home”. Each teen has their own way of looking at/ dealing with their situation and it’s interesting to notice the differences. In particular, Ryan is a newbie to the whole hospital life thing and has total faith that his doctors will figure out what’s causing his mysterious symptoms. This is the complete opposite of Ellie’s perspective. She knows all too well that doctors don’t know everything and especially doesn’t trust her newest specialist. She is also used to her mom running the show when it comes to talking to the doctors and making decisions for her (again, chronicling everything on the blog). Undeterred by Ellie’s negative attitude towards the healthcare system, Ryan offers to be her “Medical coach” and a friendship is formed. He encourages her to be more involved when talking with the specialist about the plan he’s suggesting. But, the coaching thing isn’t one sided: Ryan soon realizes that Ellie can provide insight into what it’s like being a professional patient.

As Ellie and Ryan’s friendship deepens she wonders whether keeping her two lives separate is best after all. To complicate things, Caitlin is generally very open about her own feelings and experiences by maintaining a social media presence of her own. All of this leads to friction within the friend group and a lot of self reflection on Ellie’s part.

Going back to the Mom’s blog: throughout the book we see examples of the posts and get a glimpse into her perspective of a mom on a mission to find answers but also come to terms with the social emotional side of raising a child with health issues.

My Reflections
I really like that the author was deliberate in making this a medical-focused story with typical teen issues thrown in. As she mentions in the beginning, finding books like this is rare. While reading this one, I’ll admit I had difficulty relating to Ellie because of how strongly she felt about not sharing her medical side with her non-hospital friends. I don’t have that “luxury”- I’m much more like Caitlin’s character in that respect. But, I can empathize with Ellie and understand why she feels the way she does especially given the fact that she feels like the whole world knows everything about her because of the Mom’s blog. When I was born, the internet wasn’t really a thing. Therefore my mom didn’t have the opportunity to blog and share our experience via social media like many parents do today. If she did, maybe I’d feel more like Ellie who simply wants to be able to control the narrative of her life.
Like I said earlier, the book explores your typical teen issues of friendships, relationships, and growing up but it also highlights other non-typical stuff:

Learning how to be an involved member of your medical team
The balancing act of knowing what, when, and how much to share online
The affect that how a parent views their child’s condition impacts their child’s perception of themselves and the world
The toll on parents and some of the hard choices they must make when raising a child like Ellie

All in all, I think this is a very good glimpse into this often hidden world. While similar to The Fault in Our Stars (one of my top favorites) or Five Feet Apart, this book honestly goes deeper. I think it’s a realistic illustration of what it’s like being a teen like Ellie and navigating the road to adulthood. Perhaps this next point is going a little to the extreme but I also think it serves as a warning for parents nowadays about the impact of “oversharing” your child’s story online. Eventually that child is going to grow up and may or may not want certain details online. They may choose to keep things private or they may become the next big social media influencer. The key is they have a choice. Therefore, I could see this as being a great option for both teens and parents to read and then discuss together.

Ellie Haycock is Totally Normal is a YA novel about a girl with a rare genetic condition. My adult daughter has multiple rare conditions to deal with which made it very relatable to me. Being a young adult while dealing with medical issues is challenging. Ellie tries to appear normal to her school friends but can be honest with her hospital friends so she keeps them separate. Eventually she realizes she needs all her friends to help her as she manages her condition.

I will be purchasing a copy for my daughter when this book is published. It's one of the best explanations of life with rare medical conditions. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for my review copy of this book, all opinions are my own.

This book was not for me. I felt disconnected from characters and they felt disconnected from each other. I did, however, enjoy the blogging aspect and that storyline (lots to think about in the digital age).

I loved this! Its engaging plotline and adorably frustrating characters pulled me out of my reading slump. I liked Ellie's struggles to get her mom to respect her while she was trying to figure herself out was interposed with her mom's old privacy-ignoring blog posts. It definitely shows a cynical view of children's hospitals that we dont often see in media, which was very refreshing.

I really love the uptick in disability YA we're getting. I think Ellie is a great edition to that canon and her story will resonate with a lot of readers. I had some frustrations with the book, but they are structure/prose based, not story. A lot of the conversations (and some internal dialogue) seemed to jump around to me. Characters came to conclusions that made no sense, like a chunk of dialogue was missing. I did a lot of going back and rereading pages to make sure I wasn't missing something. It made it harder to understand some of the relationships as I felt like I was missing some of the pieces. While this detracts from my experience of reading, the quality of story and plot was still quite good.

Loved this. I was immediately sucked into Ellie’s story and world. The relationships felt complex and believable, and I was so invested from the first page.

I really liked the overall themes of this book - friendship, vulnerability, etc.

I found this to be sweet and well written and something we all could do a dose of reading.

An important read for all of us in this digital age. A story of vulnerability, friendship and character growth. Highly reccomended!

I truly loved seeing an amazing, nuanced, intelligent main character that has a disability! I wish there were so many more in this world. It would make life so much better for kids growing up with health issues/disabilities being able to see characters like them! I was 30 before I started getting diagnosed with my disabilities, but my daughter has had them from the start. I think this would really show her that she does not have to hide parts of herself to make her life palatable for others. There really should be more writers with disabilities to be more representative of our world. Great writing, great character development, great plot!