Publisher: PenguinTeen
Genera: YA, Contemporary
Amazon ~ Goodreads ~ TBD
Synopsis: Abby Furlowe has plans. Big plans. She's hot, she's popular, she's a cheerleader and she's going to break out of her small Texas town and make it big. Fame and fortune, adoration and accolades. It'll all be hers.
But then she notices some spots on her skin. She writes them off as a rash, but things only get worse. She's tired all the time, her hands and feet are numb and her face starts to look like day-old pizza. By the time her seventeenth birthday rolls around, she's tried every cream and medication the doctors have thrown at her, but nothing works. When she falls doing a routine cheerleading stunt and slips into a coma, her mystery illness goes into overdrive and finally gets diagnosed: Hansen's Disease, aka leprosy.
Abby is sent to a facility to recover and deal with this new reality. Her many misdiagnoses mean that some permanent damage has been done, and all of her plans suddenly come tumbling down. If she can't even wear high heels anymore, what is the point of living? Cheerleading is out the window, and she might not even make it to prom. PROM!
But it's during this recovery that Abby has to learn to live with something even more difficult than Hansen's Disease. She's becoming aware of who she really was before and what her behavior was doing to others; now she's on the other side of the fence looking in, and she doesn't like what she sees. . .
My Rating
4/5 stars
My Review
Confessions of a Teenage Leper is a fantastic high school novel with a wonderful message. I would recommend this to all teenagers.
Abby's life in high school was perfect, she's popular, a cheerleader, and everyone wants to be her. But when Abby contracts leprosy after a long period of misdiagnosis, her whole life gets flipped upside down, and now she could never cheer again, and her so called friends won't even talk to her.
I won't lie, I was really afraid in the beginning of the book that I would not like Abby at all, but I was pleasantly surprised that I did not hate her. Yes she was a bit annoying in the beginning of the book, but her overall character development and her story really made her into an amazing character, and by the end of the novel I absolutely loved her. The way the author wrote about Abby was perfect, she felt like a teenage girl, but still one that I could relate to.
Also, another huge reason why I loved this book was because you could tell how much work Ashley Little put into researching Hansen's Disease. As someone in the medical field, it is so common for people to just wikipedia something and assume its correct, but most of the time its wrong and it ends up bothering me the whole book. Fortunately, this book had lots of correct information that also teaches the reader a bit about the disease. Although I may be biased in my opinion on this one.
This novel is very fast pace. If you're an avid reader and have a bit of time, you can easily finish this book in a couple hours or so. While it was nice because it told the story and got to the point, while keeping the reader entertained, I do think there could have been a bit more editing and just a bit more world-building and more juice to the story. It ended just a bit too fast for me.
Overall, I absolutely love this book and the message that it sends. This is my first book by Ashely Little, but I will definitely be on the lookout for her future books. I highly recommend this one to students, or anyone interested in learning more about Leprosy. And a huge thank you to Penguin Random House for providing me with a copy for an honest review.
Happy Reading,
Aneta
Abby's life in high school was perfect, she's popular, a cheerleader, and everyone wants to be her. But when Abby contracts leprosy after a long period of misdiagnosis, her whole life gets flipped upside down, and now she could never cheer again, and her so called friends won't even talk to her.
I won't lie, I was really afraid in the beginning of the book that I would not like Abby at all, but I was pleasantly surprised that I did not hate her. Yes she was a bit annoying in the beginning of the book, but her overall character development and her story really made her into an amazing character, and by the end of the novel I absolutely loved her. The way the author wrote about Abby was perfect, she felt like a teenage girl, but still one that I could relate to.
Also, another huge reason why I loved this book was because you could tell how much work Ashley Little put into researching Hansen's Disease. As someone in the medical field, it is so common for people to just wikipedia something and assume its correct, but most of the time its wrong and it ends up bothering me the whole book. Fortunately, this book had lots of correct information that also teaches the reader a bit about the disease. Although I may be biased in my opinion on this one.
This novel is very fast pace. If you're an avid reader and have a bit of time, you can easily finish this book in a couple hours or so. While it was nice because it told the story and got to the point, while keeping the reader entertained, I do think there could have been a bit more editing and just a bit more world-building and more juice to the story. It ended just a bit too fast for me.
Overall, I absolutely love this book and the message that it sends. This is my first book by Ashely Little, but I will definitely be on the lookout for her future books. I highly recommend this one to students, or anyone interested in learning more about Leprosy. And a huge thank you to Penguin Random House for providing me with a copy for an honest review.
Happy Reading,
Aneta
This is the first time I'm hearing about this book. I need to love the characters in order for me to like the book so I'm not sure this one is for me but I'll definitely keep an eye out for it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing,
~Brittany @ Brittany's Book Rambles