A gripping, sensitively written account of a terrible affliction that is more common than realized.
Adolescence is bad enough, but suppose you also have Lyme disease and no one can diagnose it?
In this novel, Amelia “Lia” Garrett Lenelli is your garden variety teenager. But in addition to the usual teen angst, she has more subtle problems—such as getting a D on a test that she should have aced (she’s clearly bright, a good student) and then experiencing panic attacks, memory loss, and physical debilitation. She has been referred to a therapist, a guy who simply sits patiently and encourages her to keep producing the letters that she has admitted to writing and burying in her garden in a “time capsule”: her old My Little Pony lunchbox. These letters, addressed to “Dear Whoever You Are,” make this a strange sort of epistolary novel and form the basis and bulk of the book. Lia has a loving and supportive family. She gets even more support (eventually) from her friend Mollie’s big brother, Josh. But a big problem is that Lyme disease is so mysterious that many of her friends (like Mollie) simply don’t believe that she is really sick, but rather that she is some sort of drama queen. She finds all of this maddening. The doctors have no clue—Lia is losing patience with them and they with her. Finally, almost as a fluke, Lia finds a fellow sufferer. Yes, it’s Lyme disease, and yes, there is a kindly physician who understands and treats it. A slow recovery begins, though there can be relapses. Battles are won, but Lia acknowledges that “the war still lingers dormant within me.”
“Whoever You Are” is, of course, you, dear reader, a powerful device to yank you into the riveting story. (Ultimately, while planting a rose bush, Lia’s father unearths the lunchbox, but that is just a bit of stagecraft.) Pogorzelski is an experienced writer and has created a wonderful character in Lia, who is tough but always on the brink of being overwhelmed. The teen also has a wicked way with observations. When the Lenellis decide to have a garage sale, to Lia it looks “like our childhood threw up all over our lawn.” Lia finds school excruciating, with the students being pack-oriented. She is sidelined, if not outright ostracized. Readers will feel her agony, anger, and, most of all, her growing fear. At one point, she comes close to suicide. One exception among the well-meaning but unhelpful people is Lia’s nameless shrink. He has a past of his own from his stint in Vietnam and resists any facile judgments, setting her on the writing therapy path. In some ways, he seems no more helpful than the others, but Lia realizes an essential wisdom in him and suspects that he is a fellow sufferer, not from Lyme disease but from a deep sadness, having seen too much. He is a strong character who clearly represents a lesson in trust. Like Holden Caulfield, Lia can spot a phony a mile off; her therapist is the real deal. In an afterword, readers will discover that this is actually the author’s own story, slightly fictionalized. Pogorzelski is now a crusader and provides helpful links for those who are suffering as she was.
A gripping, sensitively written account of a terrible affliction that is more common than realized. (afterword)Pub Date: Sept. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9888751-3-5
Page Count: 278
Publisher: Brown Beagle Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hokey plot, good fun.
A business executive becomes an unjustly wanted man.
Walter Nash attends his estranged father Tiberius’ funeral, where Ty’s Army buddy, Shock, rips into him for not being the kind of man the Vietnam vet Ty was. Instead, Nash is the successful head of acquisitions for Sybaritic Investments, where he earns a handsome paycheck that supports his wife, Judith, and his teenage daughter, Maggie. An FBI agent approaches Nash after the funeral and asks him to be a mole in his company, because the feds consider chief executive Rhett Temple “a criminal consorting with some very dangerous people.” It’s “a chance to be a hero,” the agent says, while admitting that Nash’s personal and financial risks are immense. Indeed, readers soon find Temple and a cohort standing over a fresh corpse and wondering what to do with it. Temple is not an especially talented executive, and he frets that his hated father, the chairman of the board, will eventually replace him with Nash. (Father-son relationships are not glorified in this tale.) Temple is cartoonishly rotten. He answers to a mysterious woman in Asia, whom he rightly fears. He kills. He beds various women including Judith, whom he tries to turn against Nash. The story’s dramatic turn follows Maggie’s kidnapping, where Nash is wrongly accused. Believing Nash’s innocence, Shock helps him change completely with intense exercise, bulking up and tattooing his body, and learning how to fight and kill. Eventually he looks nothing like the dweeb who’d once taken up tennis instead of football, much to Ty’s undying disgust. Finding the victim and the kidnappers becomes his sole mission. As a child watching his father hunt, Nash could never have killed a living thing. But with his old life over—now he will kill, and he will take any risks necessary. His transformation is implausible, though at least he’s not green like the Incredible Hulk. Loose ends abound by the end as he ignores a plea to “not get on that damn plane,” so a sequel is a necessity.
Hokey plot, good fun.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781538757987
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
