Review: "Emily" by Emily Smucker

Emily by Emily Smucker
Published 2009 via HCI
★★★

When she was seventeen, Smucker found herself sick. For Smucker, whose immune system wasn't the strongest at the best of times, this wasn't unusual...but then she didn't get better, and didn't get better, and didn't get better. What her family thought was "Emily flu" turned out to be the West Nile Virus, a mosquito-borne illness with no cure other than rest and time. Months and months of time.

This was contracted as part of a series of what I can only call "teen issue memoirs", and I picked it up after reading Smucker's second book. Some of the series covers relatively unusual subjects as far as teen issue books go (chronic/long-term illness, trichotillomania, murdered parent), and I can see why Smucker's submission (some of which is adapted from her blog) was chosen: even as a teenager she wrote with a certain degree of whimsy and an awareness that readers did not want a dry "here is what happened today", day in and day out.

I am a bit sorry not to see more about West Nile Virus: I know so little (read: nothing) about it, and if you had asked me last week I would not have guessed that it is (thank you, CDC website) "the leading cause of mosquito-borne disease in the continental United States". Most of the symptoms seem to be fairly vague—fever, malaise—but can lay somebody out for quite some time. A couple of things were dropped (what happened with the white blood cells?), but it looks like Smucker has done some low-key revisions for a new version, so maybe that will follow up on those threads.

All told, a quick read that mostly satisfied my curiosity...but if you read this, I'd recommend going for the updated version and also maybe looking up West Nile Virus early on in your read.