More of My Favorite Books of the Year!

Tracy K. Smith wrote the introduction to this vital collection of essays Lorde called The Cancer Journals. Lorde was diagnosed with breast cancer and began to assess a world that treated her like a warrior for fighting the disease, but also insisted she wear a prosthetic to make sure she appeared as a woman “should look.” But Lorde pushed back. She didn’t need to erase any physical indication of her disease. She didn’t need breasts to be a woman. Lorde’s assessment of norms in the medical industry is spot on. She possesses an ability to clearly see through the ableist expectations of society, and her intersectional approach encourages others to rethink their own perspectives of illness and what that means to women, especially Black women, patients.

National Book Award finalist Meghan O’Rourke writes about her experience with chronic illness and how the medical industrial complex is not designed to care for chronically ill people or make our lives better. O’Rourke began getting sick, and tried to brush it off as nothing. Her initial visits to doctors yielded nothing helpful, and she spent years of her life trying to manage an ever-growing list of horrible symptoms. As O’Rourke shares her own story, she researches the state of the healthcare system and describes how it fails chronically ill patients, especially chronically ill women.