Suffering with chronic illness, Priya has to drop out of Stanford and return home, putting her dreams and life on hold. Having joined a chronic illness support group Discord, Priya is concerned when her friend Brigid suddenly goes offline, only to discover a horrifying creature locked in her basement.

I absolutely loved the premise of Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses, and I was fascinated by how the parallels between fantasy/real world illnesses might be explored in the book. For me, though, I felt the story was lacking in characterisation and never delved deep enough into the emotional experience of Priya and her revelations about Brigid. I also struggled to follow so much Discord chat, I'm not sure if that's a fair comment to make, but I really struggled to remain invested in the story over so much of that kind of text.

I would recommend fans of Tyler's storyline in The Vampire Diaries, or Teen Wolf to try out this book.

I am grateful to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC of Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses. These opinions are my own.

I didn’t finish this it I just couldn’t get into it. I am sure it is just an audience issue here, I am not the target

I became aware of the controversy surrounding this book as I read it. For the record, the book is about an Indian-American and a literal werewolf, so I believe that’s all the old cover was trying to depict.

Regarding the book itself, I also suffer from a chronic illness. And I saw a lot of parallels to what I suffer from inside the pages of this very entertaining story.

Priya and Bridget have become friends online. But Priya gets more than she bargained for when she goes looking for Bridget one night. From then on, she sticks with her friend, trying desperately to help her stop turning.

The only thing about this book that stood out as odd to me was how willing people were to not only believe that Bridget is a werewolf, but to also support and believe in her. I really wish the world was like that, but for the most part, it’s not.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC. This review contains my honest, unbiased opinion.

Lycanthropy & Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O’Neal is a uniquely charming, coming of age comedy about discovering who you are & especially with that means when you have a chronic illness. It has an epistolarian feel to it in that a lot of this book is told through messages & group chats from the chronic illness support group. It has epic friendships with a found family feel, dark humor that’s crucial to surviving rough times, a bit of magic realism with the existence of werewolves & so much chronic illness representation it made my chronically ill heart soar.
I know what it feels like to constantly feel like your body is the equivalent of an iPhone battery under 20% in the red zone & screaming for help. & no matter how long you “plug in” & sleep/rest, your body never gets out of low power mode. This book was like reading parts of a diary from when I first got sick. I was in college studying premed when I first got really sick, just like the main character Priya, so it was a bit eerie in how similar that was.
Their rapid fire conversations full of wit & insides jokes made me reminisce of the days of AIM (AOL Instant Messenger-if you’re not old like me) & I appreciated the nostalgia along with the beautiful friendships. I’ve always wanted to be in a chronic illness support group like this!
Occasionally I felt like I had already read what I was reading on a meme somewhere, like some of the jokes & things felt like they were recycled if that makes sense. But I am a Millennial reading the life of Gen Z, who I am extremely proud of, by the way, especially with how they openly handle & discuss mental health, but my enhanced age might make me too seasoned for things.
There were still moments I actually laughed out loud. This book is simultaneously silly & serious & exactly what is needed in terms of chronic illness representation.
I adored Hattie & her quick wit. Also, Hattie is the name of my great grandmother, who lived to be 100 so I thought that was super neat to hear her name!
It made my heart warm from reading about someone like me, which is rare to find chronic illness representation in books & for that I’m so grateful! I related to so much of what the various characters in group were going through & it’s so important for other people to be able to read the things people with disabilities experience. Thank you to the author, Kristen O’Neal for writing this. Thank you to the publisher along with anyone who helped make this book a reality! It means so much more than these words can say.

Massive thanks to NetGalley & Quirk Books for giving me the opportunity to read an arc of this in exchange for an honest review.

Extra things I loved:
-I learned the word portmanteau! Portmanteau is a word blending the sounds and combining the meanings of two others, for example brunch (from ‘breakfast’ and ‘lunch’). Credit goes to Oxford Dictionary for reference.

Trigger warnings: This book mentions &/or contains gore, violence, medical descriptions, mental health issues & suicide.

Priya has been dealing with her long-lasting Lyme disease when she joins an online support group for people with chronic illnesses. One of her best friends from the group is Brigid. They talk a lot even outside of the group. When Brigid mysteriously disappears from online, Priya decides to drive the two hours to go try to find her. What she finds instead is a crazy wolf-like creature in Brigid's basement. It turns out that her best friend is actually a werewolf too - in fact, that is her chronic illness.

This book was so beautiful. As someone who has dealt with a chronic illness (looking at you endo), I felt so represented here. In addition, it is just a great story about friendship and coming to terms with things that we can't control. I highly recommend this book and definitely will be buying a copy!

I recevied my copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

A big thanks to Netgalley and Quirk Books for allowing me to read this title ahead of publication.

Came for the werewolves, left when the real world of Tumblr was mentioned. I get contemporaries are supposed to be another piece to the reality we live in, but sometimes cringe culture is much alive and I'd rather not have to read about it.

Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O'Neal is a contemporary novel that follows the life of Priya and her battle with Lyme disease. Along with the joke cracking side kick of Brigid, Pryia's internet friend, who suddenly goes missing. Priya does the unthinkable in stealing the family car, and driving out to Brigid's home. But instead of finding Brigid she finds what she can only assume to be a werewolf in her place.

I like the premise of the book, but the execution wasn't quite all there. As I like how O'Neal created a juxtaposition between lycanthropy and chronic illness. But I didn't quite appreciate the whole aspect of Discord and Tumblr. I'd prefer the real world stay out of my attempts of escapism.

Although this book has some criticism, I felt like the story was more about friendship than anything else. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc ebook in exchange for an honest review all opinions expressed are my own.

I feel like I should start this off with a disclaimer. There are some great reviewers who have spoken about the harmful representation in this novel, including on the other edition's cover, and I urge you to read those before deciding whether or not you're okay supporting this author. I hadn't done that research when I requested it, and I would not have picked this up if I had. The cover of this book shown on the eARC I requested was very different, so I expected this book to feature mainly chronic illness representation. The critiques of a white disabled author writing a disabled WOC main character are worth reading before you decide to pick this up.

Now onto the text itself! Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses is a modern contemporary style novel that follows our main character Priya as she discovers her internet friend Brigid is a werewolf. This novel exposes the reader to the world of online community and chronic illness as a young adult/professional through Priya's history with Lyme. This book seems to be written to be a humorous, lighthearted read on what can tend to be a more personal subject matter (referring more to disability/chronic illness here). As someone with a chronic illness mentioned in this book, it was awesome to see how the author captured some of the online chronic illness community's group dynamics, and there's something special about seeing your condition mentioned in a paranormal book. I myself am a part of several group chats, and even the way the chat was named felt like it was pulling straight from my life. On the other hand, that was about where my enjoyment of this book plateaued. This book is incredibly dialogue-heavy. There were so many pages where it felt like the text was exclusively line after line of straight quotations (omitting even the "he said, "they remarked," etc.). Since the characters interact so frequently online, this dialogue was paired with even more pages of texts sent back and forth or pages of Discord messages. As much as I wanted to enjoy it, that's just not something I enjoy reading in books. The writing style definitely felt very younger-YA despite being marketed as a NA book, and I think the author could've done a lot more to build out the side characters, setting, or inner thinking of our main character. Because it was so difficult to connect with this style of writing, this book felt very slow and the plot wasn't all that engaging. The premise sounded very interesting, but I wished the book lived up to that. I really wanted to like this novel because it connected with such important elements of my life, but it ended up just falling short. On the other hand, if you're a reader who likes a lot of dialogue or text-like conversations, this may be a great choice for you! It all comes down to personal preference, but this certainly isn't mine.

Thank you to Quirk Books and NetGalley for a digital ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

An incredibly problematic story with reflections of racism and cultural appropriation. Completely unfathomable and unacceptable. Speechless. Aparna.R's review on Goodreads voices these issues much better than I ever will. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3824728041?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1

Many thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I wasn't sure what to expect going into this book. It's important to point out first of all that I have a chronic illness and haven't read a book with rep in that area before. To have chronic illness rep is one thing, to juxtapose it with lycanthropy and comedy is another, and I had no idea how well these would go together!

What I liked:
- The accuracy in which Priya, our MC, describes living with a chronic illness. Specifically, chronic pain, aches and fatigue - all symptoms that hit me HARD when I'm having a bad day, but that are always there. The way you have to learn to adapt, and the reality of just how difficult that can be. Priya was pre-med before she got sick, and instead of becoming a doctor she has become a long term patient.
- The comedy was good. Most of the jokes hit well. It has a very specific internet/meme kind of humour to it which I think you'll get if you were or have been part of the tumblr/twitter/reddit communities.
- The werewolf aspect slides in so smoothly and honestly, that's an incredible feat!
- The realism of talking to other people with chronic illness. I had to immediately talk to a fellow spoonie about this because it was just so ACCURATE in terms of how we speak to eachother
- Honestly, this was part enjoyment and part therapy for me. I felt seen reading this.

What could be improved:
- O'Neal has clearly done some research, but there were a couple of things that were problematic about some of the chronic illness rep - particularly with Endometriosis (my personal illness) - whereby there's some dodgy medical info about treatment - for example a hysterectomy is seen as a cure/regular treatment option for Endo, when in reality it's not. There's also the belief that Endo automatically means complete infertility which I think is harmful in terms of potentially spreading misinformation.
-I can't speak for the other illness rep seen, but it's important to me that books that include a range of illnesses are as accurate as possible so I think more research in this area was needed overall.

Will I be reading again and/or recommending?
Yes. Despite it's flaws, I think this gives an accurate first hand perspective of what it's like to live with a chronic illness, and I'd recommend reading if you have friends and/or family with one - because sometimes it's hard to verbalise and keep explaining just how tired or in pain you are.

Chronic illness is hard enough to deal with on it's own. When you add on no help from doctors, no guidance on how to cope and also you're a werewolf? A nightmare. We get to follow Priya, a newly spoonied girl coping with the aftermath of Lyme disease and the irreparable changes to her life. Her online best friend, Bridget, is also dealing with a chronic illness, but one less understood. Both are trying to find a sense of support and understanding through their online support group of people with different disabilities who are just trying to get by.

If you've ever had a loved one with a chronic illness, you'll be able to attest to how true to life this book feels. We witness the uncertainty of not knowing why your body suddenly feels like a hostile environment, the feelings of isolation and the gradual toll this takes on your mental health. It's clear that O'Neal did her research in reaching out to communities of chronically ill people to make sure she was able to tell this story in the most respectful and true way possible.

I do wish there had been more exploration into how people react to a previously unknown illness and perhaps challenging their own perceptions of what a chronic illness can look like and what range of people could be included under the umbrella. As it is though, the accepting and understanding nature of the characters helping their friend deal with lycanthropy is like a warm hug and could be just the right thing for young people starting this journey of discovery for themselves. 100% will recommend.

This is a difficult book for me to review. On the one hand, I really enjoyed it. Like, I devoured it in a single day. It's easy to read and had some really good aspects.

But there are multiple PoC readers who dislike this book. I'm white, so I'm not going to understand their hurt. I don't even want to pretend I do. And I requested this book before I'd seen those. I want to tell you to check out those reviews, even if you enjoy the book, we still need to acknowledge the problematic elements.

That aside, this book was so addictive. It was so easy to read, and I loved the discord elements. The group felt true of my friend group server and it warmed my soul. There was a lot of discussion of mental illness, chronic illness and disability in there. Yet they were all there for eachother in such ways that I teared up. The disabled character had cerebral palsy which is one of my disabilities as well as my brother. Whereas, in me, you can't tell, in my brother it's very obvious and he has mental disabilities too. So some of the quotes really hit home for me.

The paranormal element was interesting. I do want to know where the werewolf gene came from, but u fuels that would take more years of research than we saw in the book. It was definitely an interesting take on lycanthropy and it made me think.

Overall, I enjoyed this book a fair bit and I would read it again. It's just one you need to look a little more into.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Tw: body horror, suicidal thoughts, ableism, animal death, infertility, confinement, blood

Priya's dream is to become a doctor, but a diagnosis of chronic Lyme disease during her sophomore year forces her to go back to her overbearing but loving family in New Jersey and leaves her wondering if she'll ever be able to go back to the way things were. Thankfully, she has an online support group and a best friend, Brigid who lives not so far from her. When Brigid suddenly goes offline, Priya decides to steal the family's car and go look for her, but she wasn't prepared for what she found once she got there.

I LOVED all the characters! The online group of friends was so wholesome and it reminded me of my own group of friends! I loved the fact that every one of them had their own arc and personality and weren't just labelled as "the friends". The friendship between Priya and Brigid was so pure and sweet and definitely my favorite part of the story. I appreciated that it was the main point of the book, because platonic relationships are just as important as romantic ones.

The writing was really easy to follow and engaging and I especially loved the chat messages between the different members of the group.

I highly recommend this to anyone who's looking for a fun read about friendship, dealing with chronic illnesses and werewolves.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an early copy.

Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses is one of the most funny, engaging, and quick witted books that I have read in a while. The characters are well-written, and you will genuinely root for them. The story follows Priya, who recently contract Lyme disease and is still suffering its effects. She has an online pen pal, Brigid who soon becomes her closest confidant and friend. They both join a support group for people with chronic illnesses. When Brigid isn’t online for a few days, Priya takes the family car and decides to check in on Brigid. As the title suggests, we are introduced to another side of Brigid.

The online support group that is comprised of people with different chronic illnesses is eye-opening. I wasn’t familiar with a lot of these conditions. The characters discussed their situations frankly, and the reader can’t help but feel emotional when they recount some of the obstacles that they have to overcome. This is a great way of illustrating how illness doesn’t define who someone is. It is just a part of them. The other standout is just the general humor and wittiness throughout the book. I was always engaged in the story.

Kristen O’Neal has written a heartwarming story about friendship, grieving who we used to be, as well as, accepting what we have become. It is a wonderfully written story that also features werewolves.

It's hard for me to articulate what this book meant to me. As someone with Chronic pain and undiagnosed conditions the connections to these characters is something I won't forget. The support group aspect was very clever and I know lots of people will also relate to the discussions that went on in this book.

While it dealt with tough topics like inaccessible healthcare, mental health following diagnosis/injury, and losing things to your condition it also had light-hearted moments in between like... you know.. a werewolf?

A beautiful way to bring chronic illness and lycanthropy together and provide some comic relief in moments that felt heavy.


“You celebrate. You mourn. And most of the time it’s about the exact same thing.”

Lycathropy and other chronic illnesses was the best book I’ve read in a long time. This book followers Priya, a girl who drops out of college due to Lyme disease. She moves back home and starts talking to her internet best friend Brigid, whose also chronically ill. They join a sort of support group together. But when Priya doesn’t hear from Brigid after days, she gets worried and goes over to check on her. What she finds it surprising!
This book made me feel so seen. There’s a online chronic illness support group that our main character joins, and one of them has endometriosis, another has migraines and another is trying to get a diagnosis. as someone who has endo, migraines and a bunch of other things my doctors haven’t figured out yet, I was just really happy to have so many characters I could connect to. It also goes into how being chronically ill can effect your mental health, both anxiety and depression are represented so well in this book. There’s also tons of LGBT+ characters!
Theres. Even. Playlists. For. The. Characters!!!!!
This book was so clever and funny. I loved all the characters!
I’d recommend for anyone who wants to learn more about what it’s like to live with a chronic illness or likes werewolves.

I had trouble getting into this book, though I have talked with other readers who enjoyed it. I will certainly be suggesting it to YA readers!

I'm not sure how I feel about this one. The dialogue is quite snappy, and the chronic illness representation is well done, along with the support group and Priya's attempts to help her friend's unique situation. The Discord transcripts were a bit much for me and felt overlong, although they definitely read true to Discord conversations. I'm just not a fan of the style. Additionally, I'm leery of white authors attempting to write POC main characters, and I do think the discourse surrounding this book is a valid one. I don't feel it's my place to say whether or not it's a fatal flaw for the book.

Ultimately, the horror-comedy premise was refreshing, but I never quite connected to the story.

I had a really hard time getting into this book. The characters felt like tropes and borderline stereotypes and the online interactions throughout the book dragged it out. Also, the fact that the POV of the narrator does not align with the experiences of the author did not sit well with me at all.

I received a complimentary copy of this book through NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I was really interested to give this a read when I realised it centred around characters dealing with chronic illness and/or disability.
I tend to not overly enjoy purely YA contemporaries at this point in life but this twist was really clever to me.

While there were some angsty teen moments that weren't my favourite and some of the text scenes were a little long for me, I really appreciated such a good example of what a healthy and helpful support group can be and also just the extra day to day struggles of life with a chronic illness. Whether it be fighting with insurance companies over treatments or trying to convince people to hear you when you say you're in pain.

Invisible illness is still a huge topic that is unfortunately too often seen as a topic of debate as to whether or not it exists rather than what can be done to educate and raise awareness.
Because of my own experiences with being diagnosed with a chronic and incurable pain disorder I really appreciated seeing this conversation raised in YA fiction.