Book Review: Ellie Haycock is Totally Normal by Gretchen Schreiber

[ID: a yellow book with an illustration of a white daisy in the center with bright pink cursive text reading “Ellie Haycock is Totally Normal” surrounding it. The book is held in a white hand with a gold bumblebee ring on the thumb in front of a rainbow assortment of books on a white bookshelf. Three pink and white roses emerge from the top of the book.]

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

Summary: “Ellie Haycock has always separated her life into sections: Ellie at home and Ellie at the hospital. At home, Ellie is a proud member of her high school’s speech and debate team alongside her best friend and her boyfriend. At the hospital, Ellie has a team of doctors and a mom who won’t stop posting about the details of her illness online. It’s not hard for Ellie to choose which of the two she prefers.

But this latest hospital stay is different. Ellie becomes close with a group of friends, including Ryan, a first-timer who’s still optimistic about the doctors that Ellie stopped trusting years ago.”

@LibraryOfDreaming’s thoughts: 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.