Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC.

“There’s Nothing Wrong with Her” by Kate Weinberg is a novel that delves into the complexities of mental health, the intricacies of personal relationships, and the often blurred lines between reality and perception. The protagonist, Vita Woods, is a character who resonates with the struggles of modern life, grappling with an illness that defies diagnosis and a life that seems to be slipping through her fingers.

Weinberg’s narrative is a tapestry of emotions, weaving together threads of love, madness, illness, and recovery. Vita’s journey is one marked by a profound sense of isolation, as she finds herself confined to the depths of “The Pit,” a metaphorical space that represents her battle with an undiagnosed condition that leaves her bedridden and disconnected from the world. The presence of Luigi, a Renaissance poet who may or may not be a figment of Vita’s imagination, adds a layer of magical realism to the story, offering both comfort and confusion to Vita’s already tumultuous existence.

The beauty of Weinberg’s writing lies in her ability to craft a story that is both raw and tenderly comic. She captures the essence of Vita’s struggle with a forensically observed attention to detail, making the reader feel every bit of Vita’s frustration and yearning for normalcy. The novel is about the strength of human connections and the unexpected friendships that can pull us out of our darkest moments.

Weinberg’s prose is exquisite, with a perceptive quality that makes the complexities of human relationships come alive on the page. The novel is a reminder that sometimes, the greatest battles we face are the ones that are invisible to others, and the path to recovery is not just about finding a cure but also about finding understanding and acceptance.

“There’s Nothing Wrong with Her” is a perfectly off-kilter novel that offers a unique perspective on the human condition. It is a story that will resonate with anyone who has ever felt out of place in their own skin, and it is a testament to the power of resilience and the human spirit. Kate Weinberg has delivered a novel that is thought-provoking and deeply moving, and it is certainly a must-read for those who appreciate literary fiction that tackles real-world issues with grace and empathy.

This book initially puzzled me, and even after finishing it, I'm uncertain if I fully understood it. Was it all in her mind, tied to her mental health struggles and past trauma? It delves into the challenges of invisible health issues, where outwardly healthy people feel weighed down daily. The concept of "The Pit" and Vita's struggle with warning signs before spiraling were compelling. However, the narrative's ambiguity left me with more questions than answers. It might benefit from multiple readings or a book club discussion to fully grasp its complexities.

this book never clicked with me.

vita falls into "the pit" regularly (depression?) and holes up in her bedroom. she picks fights with her live-in boyfriend, max, a doctor, about whether or not he thinks there is actually something medically wrong with her. she had a terrible upbringing, she can barely handle social interaction, and she converses with an imaginary man who claims to have written the story of romeo and juliet before shakespeare.

i wanted to dnf this book multiple times but i was pushed through to the end hoping to find some answers. i found none.

Thank you to Penguin Group Putnam for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

I couldn't get myself to find to find this book captivating. I had high hopes for the book while reading the summary, but actually reading the storyline wasn't as appealing. Maybe if I read this in the future, I can rethink my rating. But for now, it's a no for me.

Thanks to #negalley and the publisher for the arc to this book.

In Kate Weinberg’s "There’s Nothing Wrong with Her," just after first person narrator Vita Woods moves in with her handsome, accomplished doctor boyfriend Max, she’s plunged into an unnameable illness that keeps her trapped in her London apartment. Unable to go to work or even move from bed, Vita spends her days talking to her goldfish Whitney Houston, communing with the ghost of 16th century Italian writer Luigi da Porto, and trying not to remember her fraught childhood past.

The narrative margins of "There’s Nothing Wrong with Her" are deceptively simple. Vita is stuck in her basement flat, in her bed, and in her mind. But Vita’s first person narration isn’t insular, and it’s not limiting. Although her body is lodged in space, her mind is free to wander in time—between the remembered and the lived, the imagined and the real, the what-could-have-been and the what-might-still-be. The novel distorts the temporal and the spatial in order to enact Vita’s inarticulable corporeal experience. At the same time, Weinberg’s linguistic and formal play captures the horror of occupying a state of mind and body that nobody believes or wants to authenticate.

In August, Weinberg’s sophomore novel will join a host of women authors’ writings about women’s physical wellbeing and mental health. While Weinberg has published numerous nonfiction essays about her own experience with long-COVID, "There’s Nothing Wrong with Her" disrupts the tradition of writing about women’s health by embracing surrealism and magical realism. Vita’s imaginary worlds, vivid hallucinations, and kaleidoscopic dreams allow her to access the ineffable mysteries of corporeality.

Vita’s story is both about being sick and about confronting trauma. However, Weinberg is posing bigger questions about the credibility of a woman’s point of view, too. Through Vita’s account, Weinberg forces her reader to ask: What is a woman’s word about her own experience worth? When is a woman free to express the mysticism, the wildness, and the devastation of her experience and have that expression believed?

Written with true tenderness and wit, precision and poignancy, "There’s Nothing Wrong with Her" is in conversation with other contemporary novels tackling the intersection of the corporeal and the physiological, including Rachel Yoder’s "Nightbitch" and Claire Oshetsky’s "Chouette". Weinberg’s novel is also ideal for admirers of Susan Sontag, Sloane Crosley, and Anne Boyer.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advance copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

I don't think I was in the right headspace to read this novel when I did, the description sounded so interesting but just fell so flat for me. I found myself confused by the storyline and not particularly attached to any of the characters either. I wanted to like this novel so much more than I did, from other reviews I've seen it looks like many do.

This story was just okay. The magical realism threw me for a bit of loop, but I did find myself connecting with the characters - Even the one’s that weren’t “real”.

I loved Kate Weinberg's last book, The Truants, and was really excited to get an early copy of her new one.

Vita's life was going very well before she got sick with an unknown illness which has left her bed bound. Having recently moved in with her boyfriend, Max, Vita is alone most of the day while Max is at work. Vita's primary companion is a fish named Whitney Houston, and the ghost of an Italian who says he created Romeo and Juliet. Vita starts up a friendship with her upstairs neighbors, which adds some depth to her days.

I really enjoyed this book and loved Vita -- and really loved how the parts about her pre-sickness life were revealed. I really felt for Vita and everything she was going through. I enjoyed the side characters a lot too, especially Luigi, and Mrs. Rothwell.

I loved the commentary of mental health and the connection between physical health and mental health -- and the inability to distinguish between the two, sometimes. Kate Weinberg did a very good job of describing the isolation of being sick, and the struggle to be understood and taken seriously.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book!

A beautiful book - Weinberg has crafted excellent and interesting characters. I loved reading this story and found it hopeful and authentic. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you #NetGalley and #PenguinGroupPutnam for the ARC for my honest opinion.

Vita is suffering from an unknown illness and everyone thinks nothing is wrong with her. She struggles with getting herself together, can't seem to get out of bed, she is in constant pain, and she finds herself in "The Pit" time and time again. The only things that are helping her through her days are a 500 year old Renaissance poet, Luigi and her goldfish, Whitney Houston.

I was first drawn to this book because of the title and the blurb. It seemed really interesting and I really wanted to know what was wrong with Vita. It was a little tough for me to get the rhythm of the book, as it seems to jump from reality to scattered thoughts/imaginings frequently within chapters.

There IS something wrong with Vita, but it is not a physical thing. There's Nothing Wrong With Her does a great job making you feel what it is like to suffer from emotional trauma, depression, and mental health issues and what we do to try to cope. I did like the book, but there were things left open that have no real resolve or solution. A book doesn't always have to end wrapped up in a nice pretty bow, because in this case, dealing with depression isn't always that way. I would have liked to know what Vita does and what happens to her co-characters after she tries to "heal".

A very heavy read but ultimately lovely and full of hope. There’s a point where this begins to veer into tragedy for tragedy’s sake, but the surreality of Luigi’s presence and the moments of humor help to keep it afloat. This does feel to me like a draft that could use another round of edits to really pull everything together — parts of it were a bit scattered and it didn’t flow in a way that was completely cohesive. I also wish we spent more time seeing Vita’s relationship with Grace and Jesse develop. My favorite thing about this book is that the ending feels like a beginning.

This novel explores trauma and somatic trauma response, as well as the stigmas surrounding chronic illness of any kind. Vita, we lear, has been ill for a long time, and, at the start of the novel, is beginning to receive visitations from/of a long-dead Italian writer, who serves in a way as a therapist and as a "sassy girlfriend," trying to get Vita to understand the (possible) root of her illness. Pushed into relationships with her neighbors, Vita begins to question her life and the choices she's made, and becomes physically "better." It's hard for me to review this book because on the one hand, trauma is written on the body and a lot of people brush away any kind of chronic illness--caused by psychological trauma or not--as something people can control and fix. On the other hand, this also reads just like that belief that if you are experiencing physical symptoms, well, maybe it's just all in your head. The book's ambiguity on this issue seems to want to have it both ways: that yes, trauma can make you ill, and we shouldn't disregard physical symptoms, but at the same time, cheer up! and you'll get better right away.

While the writing was excellent, I found the premise and the structure of this novel very confusing and I wasn't that invested in it to try to figure it out.

Another reviewer has remarked that this is a story you either get or you don't get. Agreed. I find a lot of depth here, starting with Luigi as avatar/mentor and ending with only a partial recovery after two losses, one chosen and one not. An analogue for chronic illness, of course (long Covid leaps into view on the first page), but this story is also an investigation of creativity, to include not only art itself but also pain, loneliness, disbelief, dread and self-doubt; a life's work, "not what job you choose in life, but where it takes you"; and the frustrating downside of medicine that "hasn't really helped you so far." Lots of metaphors here: climbing, control, force, moving forward, not knowing, and the juxtapositions of memory, ambition, and need.

Well worth a second or third read.

Kate Weinberg's latest is an intimate, uncompromising, and ultimately compassionate examination of chronic illness and how our minds and bodies influence one another.

Normally, I like a unique way of storytelling/presentation but I felt like this book was written in such a disjointed manner. It wasn’t until the last quarter of the book that one discovers that Vita appears to be in a deep depression throughout the book but also possibly might be suffering from POTS or other type of chronic illness. I kind of enjoyed the presence of the ghosts. But I felt like the story was, “girl can’t face her grief and move forward in life WITH that grief and then a couple quirky characters help her face her sister’s demise which is not her fault.” Maybe that’s simplifying it, but I could not get really connected to the story even though I’ve struggled with depression as well. I like the writing style of this author, but didn’t like the story. I’m grateful to Putnam for granting me this ARC.

I suspect this is one of those books that you either relate to completely and therefore think is brilliant or cannot relate to and are therefore somewhat perplexed by... I myself fell in the latter camp. While I could objectively comprehend what she was going through, having never experienced it I found it to be a bit of a confusing read that I couldn't connect with, and that left me puzzled rather than intrigued. I was the wrong reader for this one.

Lots of TW: Sexual Assault, childhood trauma, death of sibling, medical, mental illness.

Interesting read, but also hard to read, in the sense of the contents, not language.

Characters to me didn't seem to have much depth, the book ends in a way I wasn't expecting, so I am not really sure what to think in a way? This book does make you think though.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for my E-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I found this novel hard to get into until halfway through when Vita started leaving her bed and apartment to visit her upstairs neighbors. The scenes with the ghost of Luigi were very strange and I had to ski.m through them. All in all, I found it interesting and unique. . . A story of one woman’s journey of coming to acceptance of her past and her grief.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Vita is a chronically ill and depressed young woman who has been struggling with this mysterious illness for the past 6 months. Her live-in fiance provides support from a distance, but for the most part Vita spends her days with her goldfish, Whitney Houston, and a poet from the Renaissance era called Luigi. Throughout the course of this novel, Vita falls in and out of the deepest part of her chronic illness and depression called "The Pit", until one day she unexpectedly befriends her downstairs neighbor. Throughout their friendship, Vita begins to unearth memories that have possibly contributed to declining health. Though this novel isn't action packed, it provides thought provoking characters and relationships.