Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, Wednesday Books, and the author Gretchen Schreiber for the opportunity to read this wonderful book.

It was a fantastic young adult book about a teenage girl named Ellie who was born with a chronic disease. She had tried her entire life to keep her friends at school separate from her friends at the hospital where she visited frequently for treatment for her disease. She tried extremely hard to not allow her school friends to see how sick she actually was. She desperately wanted to live a "normal" life. Unfortunately, Ellie's mom wrote a blog about her illness, because she wanted to help other families who were dealing with the same sort of situation. She knew her mom meant well, but it angered her and she believed it was not a helpful blog. Eventually, her two worlds collided and everything Ellie thought she wanted started to fall apart.

I absolutely loved how the author, Schreiber, showed the difficulties children and their families have when their child struggles with a chronic illness. It was also interesting to view it from Ellie's point of view. I think this would be a great book for teenagers to read and discuss with their peers, parents, and teachers. It was written wonderfully and it definitely helped me to think about how it must feel to live your entire life with a chronic disease.

“Physical pain I can deal—I do deal—with, but no hospital pain scale can measure being left behind.”

4.5 stars for this young adult romance! Hurt people hurt people. Oh Ellie. I am not sure that I have ever wanted to jump inside the pages of a book and hug a fictional character the way I want to hug her. Boy was this book emotional.

“You’re not your medical file, you know that, right?”

And I want so bad to judge Ellie‘s mother for blasting her medical information all over social media in the form of a blog. But also, who am I to judge what any parent has to do to get through life with a chronically ill child? I wouldn’t dare to do so.

“The hospital cannot break or fix everything—that is entirely up to you.”

The character arcs in this story are everything I want to read. I WANT to see you win. I WANT to root for you. I WANT you to be happy. I finished this book feeling so satisfied and happy. Overall an emotional, heartfelt, and sweet read full of hurt, longing, anger, but, ultimately, forgiveness and love.

Thank you to Netgalley, St. Martin’s Press, Wednesday Books, and the author for the ARC and ALC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a cute YA novel that tackles a very difficult and serious subject. I enjoyed reading about Ellie and her friends, and I learned a lot about chronic illnesses and the challenges that come with them. I appreciated that the author was able to provide disability representation in a unique and positive way. The characters felt like real teenagers who you just can’t help but root for. Definitely a book I would recommend to a YA audience.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love when an author tells you this is some of her experience and it's okay not to read it. If you don't like sick children or hospitals.
Like the whole story takes place in and out of hospitals

I continued even though I cant relate I found this to be interesting and a bit boring I didn't not like Ellie! She seems to hate everyone but the mother having a mom blog writing about her daughter and her time in the hospital was just okay.


My thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

This book is so important!! We need more books that have main characters with disabilities to be able to help inform the world about them! It was really nice yo be able to see Ellie accept herself more and more as the story progressed and to be able to mix her worlds! I was able to relate to Ellie not really trusting doctors to be able to diagnose or “fix” her because so many of the illnesses I’ve dealt with my entire life were things that the doctors couldn’t figure out what was really going on and it’s so frustrating! It’s frustrating to be in pain and doctors telling you that there’s nothing that indicates anything should be wrong, it’s frustrating to have medical professionals making you feel like you’re crazy because they can’t understand the pain you’re in, and it’s frustrating to start to question yourself and whether or not you might actually be Imaging all of these things. And people that don’t go through things like that will never truly be able to understand but it would be nice to be acknowledged and listened to and I think books like this will help people to understand better!

I really enjoyed this debut YA contemporary by Gretchen Schreiber. It read almost like a coming age story even though Ellie, the protagonist, feels very grown up from her circumstances, having been in and out of surgeries and hospitals since she was born. Ellie has always kept her hospital and school life separate which means keeping her boyfriend and best friend at arm's length. This is complicated when she's admitted to the hospital with no end in sight. This was such an interesting and thoughtful portrayal of disability. You are in Ellie's head throughout the book and Ellie is thoughtful, stubborn, scared and struggling and watching her come to terms with her new friends ("the tumor squad") and how she wants to move forward in the world was very moving.

Ellie's story is complicated by her mother who has been blogging about her and her various medical issues since she was born. Ellie has gotten increasingly fed up with the way her mother has coopted a lot of her experiences and the way she and the doctors never seem to listen to what she wants. Mommy bloggers and the like are very prevalent on social media and I thought the way the book handled this was very well done.

Ellie is frustrating at times but she has great friends that help her along the way.

Thank you so much to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

Ellie Haycock is navigating two lives, and she prefers to keep them separate, or least as separate as her body allows. There's Ellie at school, an active member of her school's speech and debate team, involved with her friends, and not needing any help and certainly not any saccharine sympathy, thank you. And there's Ellie in the hospital, again, with a totally different group of friends, facing a forty-somethingth surgery she doesn't want but can't refuse because she's still a minor, dealing with breathing issues that will not go away. Ellie doesn't think her school friends can deal with the reality of her physical challenges due to VACTERL (her past experiences have shown that), and she's incredibly weary of her mom's medical blog that has been posting all the details of Ellie's medical life since she was a baby (with pictures). She doesn't trust her doctors (they certainly aren't finding a solution to her current medical crisis). And in the middle is Ellie herself, spiky and frozen, amazing on a stage but unable to talk about the small details of her life. This is an interesting YA novel about a teenager navigating life, health, autonomy, and romance in her complicated body.

Thanks to the publisher, the author, and Netgalley for my free earc. My opinions are all my own.

This was a cute read! I really appreciated the insight into how kids with chronic illnesses handle the constant hospitalization. This book was a good mix of informing the reader & escapism into a YA romance, which I feel like would be hard to balance. The author also did a great job showing what it’s like to have separate friend groups growing up and balancing those different sides of your life. Overall, I really enjoyed this book!

Posted on Instagram, Goodreads & StoryGraph 3/4,

If you want a YA romance / coming of age story that hits a little different, this one could be for you. It has great disability rep and portrays what it is like to be a chronically ill, disabled teen who spends half their life in the hospital but desperately wants to be a “normal” teen.

Ellie Haycock Is Totally Normal by Gretchen Schreiber an excellent YA coming of age debut!
I couldn’t get enough of this heartfelt and totally unputdownable story.
The characters were all really well written, and I appreciated the relationships they had with each other as well as with other side characters.
I thought this was such a relatable and beautifully written novel.
With just the right amount of emotion to keep me so engaged and focused.
I adored this book and I’m looking forward to seeing what Gretchen Schreiber creates next!

All in all, this book was a fantastic read. I enjoyed the journey and everything in it.

Thank You NetGalley and Wednesday Books for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

I read somewhere that "Ellie Haycock is Totally Normal" is "Six Feet Apart" meets "The Breakfast Club" and I feel like this is an absolutely accurate assessment of this story. It's YA, but not the cheesy type of YA that adults are embarrassed to read. Ellie Haycock is a 16 year old girl who, due to a mystery illness, continually ends up in the hospital. She likes to try to keep her hospital life separate from her outside life as much as possible. That's near impossible though when her mom is a high profile blogger who puts every part of Ellie's hospital stays and many surgeries online for others to read and relate to. Ellie struggles a bit this time around with trusting the doctors to do the right thing, becoming closer with some of her hospital friends (and maybe even some new ones) and wondering if she will be better in time to go to the dance with her boyfriend back home. It was a good mix of emotions going on. I liked reading about Ellie and she seemed like a real 16 year old girl. For those who liked "Six Feet Apart" and possibly the TV show "Red Band Society", I would recommend this book.

I enjoyed reading this book about Ellie and her hospital friends and all that they were going through. I really liked the friendship betwen Ellie and Caitlin and I loved Ryan as well. Brooke seemed like a good friend but Jack - not so much. It was interesting learning about VACTERLs as it wasn't something I had ever heard of. I could relate to Ryan somewhat as I have an autoimmune disorder and getting diagnosed can take a long time. I understand that this novel is connected to the writer's real life, and was probably therapeutic in writing. However, I didn't like how angry Ellie was all of the time. It seems that in reality there would be some more in-between emotions. I also feel that there are more people in the world who would actually be good friends and be understanding that what was portrayed in the book. I'm sure it doesn't always seem that way though. The writing was a little disjointed in places which made it difficult to know exactly what the author was trying to say in some scenes. I received an advanced reader e-book copy, so I'm sure some of those areas have been fixed.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. Thank you to #NetGalley and #Wednesdaybooks for an eARC of #EllieHaycockIsTotallyNormal by #GretchenSchreiber in exchange for honest feedback. 3 stars

Ellie has spent her whole life dealing with health conditions which has required a lot of time in hospitals. Her mom has blogged about it since she was born. Now in high school, she is facing another unexplained illness that has disrupted a fairly normal school year and a budding romance. Although the premise of the book was good, I never fully embraced the storyline or Ellie as a character.

Gretchen Schreiber has written a beautiful story for readers to fall in love with. What a beautiful gem.

We follow along with Ellie's coming of age story, where we feel all of the angst and emotions that come along with thriving while living with a disability as a teenager. You can't help but fall in love with Ellie. The story is beautiful and heartfelt, and easy to immerse yourself in, so you feel those experiences alongside Ellie.

Easily a 5 star read for me, and I recommend to anyone who has a love for YA!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing a copy of this arc in exchange for an honest review.

At the beginning of Ellie Haycock is Totally Normal author Gretchen Schreiber has included a note explaining how Ellie’s medical story is based on her own experiences facing a mysterious illness.

She goes on to say “I made a vow to myself not to sugarcoat the hospital/medical experience…. That also means this book goes to some heavy places…. I know these things can be hard to read when you also have to deal with them in real life, so if you need to skip my book — that’s okay.”

It is advice readers should heed. As the sibling of someone who was sick my entire life, I also struggled reading Ellie Haycock is Totally Normal. There were times I had to walk away. Ultimately, I finished it, and I’m glad I did. It’s heavy and hard, empowering and beautiful. It’s honest and painful, too. You need to be in the right head space to read it.

At the heart of Ellie Haycock is Totally Normal is the theme of trust — trusting doctors to get things right; parents that they have your best interest at heart; friends who are going to be there for you no matter what; and yourself to do the same for others. Schreiber is thoughtful in her exploration of this and what “normal” really means. It’s a deeply personal book that stays with you long after completion.

The quick cut: A girl with a rare condition finds her school and hospital worlds colliding when she ends up in the hospital again.

A real review:
Thank you to Wednesday Books for providing the arc for an honest review.

Living with a disability can be difficult, but it's not the physical toll that can be the toughest part. Sometimes it's how others view or treat you differently that can be the worst. For Ellie, this is a reality she actively fights against.

Ellie Haycock is a girl with two separate worlds. In her school life, she's an average girl with amazing friends and a supportive boyfriend. In her hospital life, she's a girl with VACTERL and a mom whose blog has made her life public consumption. It's two worlds that have remained separate until she starts getting sick again and needs to have surgery. Is her life better in two separate pieces? Or should it remain combined instead?

There are pieces of this story I absolutely adore and thoroughly loathe. I'm a big believer in bringing unique stories to the table that allow others to get a view of what disability life truly looks like. Unfortunately, the main character Ellie ends up being hard to root for with how whiney and self centered she comes across as.

I never knew VACTERL as a condition that existed and reading this ARC made me want to learn more. It's when multiple parts of the body grow abnormally in the womb, including the vertebrae, anus, heart, trachea, esophagus, kidney and limbs. The cause is unknown and it's occurrence is sporadic, with many doctors theorizing it's a combination of genetics and environmental effects factors.

Due to her condition, Ellie has had multiple surgeries and hospital stays throughout her life. She hasn't had an easy go of it from the moment she was born, so it's understandable that she doesn't want to be known for her disability status. She wants to be able to be seen as a typical teenager and not her condition. It's a feeling I relate to so much.

So if Ellie's perspective is something I related to, then why the frustration? It took me some thinking but I figured out where the disconnect is: you read a lot about Ellie goes through and how she feels about. You never really hear about what's it's like from HER perspective though. Without really getting that needed component, it's hard to really 100% empathize with her.

I am happy this story told an important component of the disability journey though: the frustration we often have with the disability affected parents. I know they mean well, but often the ones who do the most advocacy are the ones who drown out our voices and perspective. Some of us want to share our experiences and others just want to live our lives unwatched. That choice of which to do should be ours alone. Not every parent reacts to that request well and seeing how that element works out in this story is very realistic.

A disability representation story that gets important elements of the experience right, but fails to create a likeable lead character.

My rating: 3.75 out of 5

Oh Ellie! This YA novel will capture your heart. Ellie's living with VATER, which puts her in the hospital and makes navigating her life more challenging than she would like, And her mom, her mom blogs about Ellie, which might be embarrassing for Ellie but helps her. This is a coming of age story and a relatable tale of a teen coping with a medical issue, Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A very good read for the YA crowd that will also be enjoyed as a cross over.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday books for the eARC of this book. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I liked this YA story but didn't love it. Shout out for representation of a disability. Also, the author does a good job of bringing Ellie's tribe to life. Her friends are the bomb. I also liked the subplot of her parent being a "mommy blogger" who reveals all on her website, which frustrates Ellie to no end.

However, even with these positives, Ellie is just not a likeable character. I'm not trying to discount or diminish her feelings, but her concerns felt more like whining. I also feel like the romance aspect of this book didn't work--no chemistry whatsoever. Also, so many topics were covered that overall, I felt the result was a watered-down attempt at a coming-of-age story.

Sadly, I only made it about 25% through.
I really tried to finish it because Ellie's story is engaging, and you can feel the author's emotions and passion pouring out of the pages, but I should have paid attention to the content warnings at the beginning. Schreiber mentions that she did her best to keep things as real as possible when it comes to the medical procedures and challenges Ellie faces because they're close to what she's experienced, and I admire her for that determination. However, she goes into detail on even the smallest thing, like taking a needle out of an arm, and it was too much for this poor reader who has passed out in several doctors' offices at the mere mention of a needle piercing the skin.
I tried skimming the parts that take part in the hospital, but it's almost the entire story and the most emotional and plot-relevant scenes take place there. By the fourth time I realized I had my head down and was trying hard not to pass out, I accepted that it was time to bow out.

Sorry to NetGalley and Wednesday Books who gave me an early copy in exchange for a review.

This one was just a smidge too jaded for me, it was so anti doctor and difficult to connect with. I just found this one to be too juvenile to follow along with.