Being Unique Being Me Eve: cfs

Thursday, 16 August 2018

The Girl In The Window by Penny Joelson

When Kasia one night see's a young girl looking like she's being kidnapped she also sees a person in the window facing hers across the road.

Ellie her best friend visits her as Kasia can't leave her bedroom, after suffering tonsillitis, she developed an infection leading to CFS/ME. Leaving her chronically tired and weak.

As she begins to pace herself into getting downstairs and then to visit Mrs Gayatri next door, she also wonders who's in the window opposite hers as no girl ever leaves and the owners deny her being there. It is thanks to Mrs Gayatri she meets Navin and gains a new friend.

As new friends are made, new hobbies found and even getting themselves into serious danger to save many people, this book proves much drama despite Kasia having ME/CFS and being confined just to her house some days she has an adventurous time finding out about the girl in the window.

I loved Penny's last book so much, this one I'm glad to say didn't disappoint me at all either and instead I got quite emotional reading about Kasia's struggle with ME/CFS. As a sufferer of Fibromyalgia of which ME/CFS goes with hand in hand, I know what it's like to be in constant pain, be never endingly tired and dream of a life living not just existing and plans on hold. It was definitely relatable and new to young adult fiction being brought up as I haven't come across another book to mention or include a character with ME/CFS. It was a great story concept and shows how little trafficking is mentioned in fiction for young adults so brought a whole new element to the mix and not just making it a ghost storyline again like in a lot of books. I found myself reading it in one sitting, full of drama and mystery it's a thrilling read.

The book dealt with the subject of human trafficking very well and showed the danger girls can be in realistically.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Monday, 6 February 2017

My Battle With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome by Beckie Butcher

I was kindly sent this from a Goodreads giveaway.

Personally suffering myself from Fibromyalgia, a condition which very often can coincide with chronic fatigue syndrome I felt emotional reading this short insight into Beckie and her diagnosis journey.

I read it and cried and empathised with her journey as she realised her life was changing forever alike me to my own diagnosis.

In this book she talks about her faith a lot too and how she leant on her faith in God to help her through.

Beckie also talks about procedures she had experienced such as Nucca. In a hope to heal her body which unfortunately can't heal completely and is like a rollercoaster of one day being better, worse or manageable at best.

A lovely short insight to CFS and will be sharing it with my family to read as well.

Goodreads Quotes

Eve beinguniquebeingme’s quotes

"You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes."— Rosemarie Urquico

Goodreads Quotes

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