I really adored this charming read from Kate Weinberg.

It was totally unique and unlike any novel I have read before, and was an interesting portrait of life with a chronic illness.

Whilst the various interweaving elements of the book, on paper, shouldn't have worked together so well, Weinberg braids them together so expertly and seamlessly. You can't help but lose yourself in the witty exchanges with the ghost of a renaissance poet, the goldfish shaped anchor to life, the music themed daytime TV dates with the upstairs neighbours, and the harrowing and heartwarming flashbacks through life.

I found the novel to be very life-affirming and thought provoking, and I will definitely be recommending it!

A huge thank you to Kate Weinberg, Bloomsbury Publishing and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for my review.

This book is a short, sharp read that tackles what could have been a heavy and somber topic with surprising wit and creativity.

It captures the experience of living with a chronic illness in a way that feels deeply authentic, yet it avoids falling into self pity. Instead, it offers a refreshingly unique perspective, blending humor and poignancy in equal measure.

The inclusion of a renaissance ghost, who pops up to provide Vita with companionship and conversation is both strange and brilliant—a quirky, clever twist that adds a lot to the story’s charm.

Beneath its light heartedness, the book delves into various forms of trauma with subtlety and insight,. Vita’s morally ambiguous character makes for a compelling and unconventional protagonist.

While some parts of the story are undeniably odd, its snappy pacing and sharp writing make it a clever and memorable read. I’d definitely like to explore more of the author’s work.

Quirky, witty and at times really heartfelt and heavy. I really enjoyed this book, the perfect read to pick you up out of a reading slump.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC.

This is different to the books I usually read and I’m so glad I stepped out of my comfort zone! Surprisedly, it’s hard to find books that include chronic illness so I was really exciting to read this. It was portrayed well and helped fight some of the harmful stereotypes of that exist around illness. I’m excited to read more from this author in the future.

"There’s Nothing Wrong With Her" by Kate Weinberg is a gripping and deeply introspective novel that expertly navigates the intricacies of mental health, identity, and the fine line between perception and reality. Weinberg's writing is both eloquent and raw, drawing readers into the protagonist's world with an intensity that is both unsettling and profoundly moving. The narrative is layered with psychological depth, offering insights into the struggles of understanding oneself in a world quick to label and judge. With its complex characters and thought-provoking themes, "There’s Nothing Wrong With Her" is a compelling read that challenges readers to question their own assumptions and perceptions. Weinberg has crafted a powerful and unforgettable story.

Kate Weinberg's second novel is based on her own experience (one assumes from reading interviews with her) of contracting Long Covid. in the novel, she's a sparky 45 year old reduced suddenly to a bed ridden wreck. Even her doctor boyfriend can't diagnose her. Salvation comes in unexpected ways- a gold fish called Whitney Huston, an imaginary friend and some neighbours. This is a fun and thoughtful novel.

Vita Woods is not well. She has a successful and interesting career, a doctor boyfriend and a goldfish called Whitney Houston, but she cannot leave the house and the slightest exertion in her life can leave her debilitated for hours, if not days. She is not speaking to her sister, Gracie, a complicated but close sistership rooted in a very dysfunctional upbringing and due to her inability to engage with the public, is very isolated and not looking like recovery is anywhere in the distance. Then one day she has a chance encounter with her neighbour that starts a series of events that test her way of engaging with her inexplainable illness.

I love that this book was written. Highlighting how the power of having a connection can make or break us. A fantastically written fictional narrative about how the body and mind responds to trauma, reminded us that we can’t explain everything away with science and fix it with drugs.

This was a short, quick read and a snappy way of dealing with what could have been a depressing topic. Weinberg is good at evoking the feeling of a chronic illness without wallowing in self-pity. The conceit of Luigi, the ghostly Renaissance Prince, who pops up to provide Vita with company and a conversational sparring partner, is clever without feeling contrived. This is a surprisingly light-hearted investigation of several types of trauma and Vita is a refreshingly morally ambiguous heroine. Enjoyable. A few of our followers with chronic illnesses complain that they don't see themselves in books so this is a book I will absolutely be recommending to them.

I really enjoyed htis, if you'd like ;interesting, different and utterly involving' as a quote please feel free. Best, Jenny Colgan. Also I don't really give star ratings so please don't feel botehred either way.

Vita is a woman struggling with a debilitating, undiagnosed illness. The impact this has on her mental health is handled well and effectively captures the frustration and isolation of a chronic illness.
This is the ideal read for book clubs as there are several themes that could be discussed: themes of trauma, grief, and the often invisible struggles of chronic illness.
A thought-provoking, poignant, and at times, humorous read.

Rating: 3.0/5

I loved Kate Weinberg's debut novel, "The Truants", which I awarded a rare 5-star rating. It took twenty years since completing her creative writing course at the University of East Anglia for Kate Weinberg to write that first book. This second publication under her name has only taken about five years (though she has also worked as a ghost writer, so there may well have been others that were simply not accredited to her) and is a novella dealing primarily with mental health, although it does touch on a number of other areas too.

"There's Nothing Wrong With Her" is well-written and stylistically would probably be best described as literary fiction. It takes a little while for the reader to assimilate the setting and the world in which central character, Vita, finds herself, but thereafter it does become a thought-provoking read, which is often poignant, sometimes disturbing, but also regularly pleasantly humorous.

This second offering from Kate Weinberg didn't impress me as much as her debut did, but it is still a good book and the sort of thing that would work particularly well as a book club choice, as it should prompt plenty of discussion points.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for supplying an ARC in return for an honest review.

What a beautiful book. The story is deep and fascinating, not what I expected at all from the title. Some parts I dis expect. Vita is ill. Painfully, debilitatingly ill. Not fully diagnosed, but one of those unable to move, stuck in bed, long term illnesses that annoyingly seem to affect women more than men. Her relationship with Max was in early stages when she was struck down and now she is stuck in bed, in his basement flat while he ventures out in to the world. In lucid moments she has companions: Whitney Houston (goldfish) and Luigi (ghost of Italian writer). And the sound of a piano in the flat upstairs. As the illness progresses, Vita learns about her own character. Witney isn't much help but Luigi is astonishingly valuable. And she needs to find out who is playing that piano. Fabulous book.

A really great book if you’re into the messy girl lit fic. Writing was really good, super easy to get into and was surprised by how funny the story was!

There's Nothing Wrong With Her by Kate Weinberg follows the tale of Vita as she battles through a chronic illness to get to the bottom of what is 'wrong with her.'
There is a brilliant cast of secondary characters, ranging from a 16th Century phantom to a grieving widow to Whitney Houston the goldfish. They are expertly drawn and observed. Vita is a likeable but flawed heroine and I sometimes found myself rolling my eyes at her processing.
One of my close friends has gone through a similar illness - minus the ghostly visitations - and it made me feel quite sympathetic as I saw the inner feelings of someone suffering through this and the pain of existing everyday in this state - is it Lyme's disease, CFS, mental illness, nothing at all?

Characters aside, the book felt quite patchy. I wasn't entirely sure if the illness had started due to one of the traumatic events described in the book and whether I read it correctly but felt like it didn't quite have the satisfactory resolution I was expecting at the end.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book, despite the inconclusive narrative. Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an advanced release copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book delves into mental health topics which I can relate to myself so I connected to this storyline. The topics was dicussed very well.

‘But the poisoned feeling has snagged me by the legs and I lurch backwards into The Pit’
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Kate Weinberg is back, and after loving her debut The Truants it was so nice to delve back into her writing and in what felt like a whole new way
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Following a woman’s illness that forces her to be mainly bed bound, we deep dive into her mind and hold on tight whilst we’re transported through her story both past and present, as she follows a road to recovery that may change many aspects of her life and her perspective
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Doing some research ahead of time, this novel was born out of Weinberg’s own stint with long covid and I feel the personal level is really brought through with the text. This had me completely captivated and I found myself completely lost in the narrative and not wanting to come up for air. With both The Truants and TNWWH, Weinberg proves she’s a force to come up against in many different genres and a true joy to read
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Thank you to Bloomsbury for the early copy of this one, I loved it so much!

This book was a bit of an "on-the-fence" book. I enjoyed parts of it, and disliked others.

Vita was a well written character and relatable and I did enjoy reading her story. And a goldfish called Whitney is always a plus. To begin with, I felt a kinship to her, this unknown illness, pain, loneliness, not knowing what's wrong, questioning your own body and mind, I get it. My own illness took several years for a diagnosis and even now, it's not an easy thing to live with. And so Vita was definitely a friend from the off. It was really interesting to see Kate's description of a chronic illness. It can be hard to get that description right, especially for a reader with a chronic illness, it's difficult to get it right but not be OTT. I didn't like her boyfriend Max though; he felt a bit selfish, and even though he doesn't verbalise it, I got the feeling that he didn't believe Vita.

It's a relatively short book, and I'm not usually one who wishes for longer books, but I do wish this was longer. I think it would benefit from being longer. It's a bit random and all over the shop, and I think if it was longer, it would have given Kate more to work with regarding the character development and background. As it is, whilst a good read, it felt like it was missing something.

If I didn't have the personal connection to Vita's story, I don't think I'd have got as much from it, as there isn't much in the way of a story.

It is an interesting commentary on mental health and psychological health, and how it can impact upon physical health. It's good at throwing up the idea about whether physical illnesses caused by mental/psychological issues count as real illnesses. For example, I have FND, which means physically my brain is undamaged. But functionally, it doesn't' work well, which means it often doesn't talk to my body to move properly, speak, grip, stand eat, etc. and my consultant was very hot on the fact that just because it's not a physical thing that can be seen on a brain scan, doesn't mean it isn't real. But a lot of people see that it's a psychological illness, and therefore note actually real. And I felt this book really stretched that idea and I really appreciated Kate writing that.

It is a bit abstract, written as a stream of consciousness and thoughts from Vita's point of view, and so it was difficult to get any depth from the supporting characters. It's a bit bitty, going forward and backwards to scenes that, in my opinion, didn't even matter to the whole story. It's a little disjointed at times, a bit random, higgledy-piggledy, but that wasn't a deal-breaker for me. I still thought overall the story was well created, just formed a bit...off, for me.

It isn't always an easy read. There are some complicated topics, but I never felt it was too uncomfortable to be enjoyable, I felt it was generally handled well. I enjoyed it more earlier on. I felt there were more pacing issues, and a bit too much of a confusing format as it went on.

I wish it had a better ending. I don't mind ambiguous endings that ask the reader to work it out, but this wasn't even that. It was like Kate forgot to finish the chapter and it jars with the rest of it.

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐖𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐇𝐞𝐫 | 𝐊𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐖𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐠 | 𝟑*

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐓𝐨 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭:
⟡ Literary fiction
⟡ Exploration of chronic illness, trauma, and grief
⟡ House-bound MC
⟡ Unexplained illness

𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬:
This book is a literary fiction novel with a house-bound main character, Vita, who lives with her boyfriend and doctor, Max. Whilst on the surface Max is supportive, there are a few scenes in the book where his distaste, boredom avoidance of Vita and her unexplained chronic illness is clear.

Thankfully, Vita manages to befriend her upstairs neighbours, Mrs Rothwell, an elderly lady who is grieving, and Jesse, her friend/tenant who also sort of supports her.

I really enjoyed the descriptions of chronic illness and the impact they have on the sufferer and the people around the sufferer. I felt like they were poignant and accurate. I didn’t expect character growth due to the nature of the illness, and I didn’t expect plot due to exploratory nature of the story. However, I did expect the story to be more coherent in its resolutions.

𝐅𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐐𝐮𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬:
“𝘔𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶, 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘪𝘳𝘥 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴.”

“‘𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦,’ 𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘺𝘴. ‘𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘶𝘨𝘦, 𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦. 𝘈 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘴. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵’𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘺 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯. 𝘉𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘩𝘦’𝘴 𝘵𝘳𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘪𝘹 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘦. 𝘏𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭.’”

“𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦’𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨… 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘪𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘭𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘭𝘭, 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘢 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘰𝘰. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘦, 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘦, 𝘤𝘢𝘯’𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘵, 𝘭𝘦𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘳 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘵. 𝘚𝘰 𝘪𝘵 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘵. 𝘐𝘵 𝘥𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘵, 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘶𝘭𝘵.”

As someone who deals with severe health issues and chronic issues that are a bit hard to figure out Incan definitely relate to this book so so much. I think it will provide great comfort to those dealing with a similar situation. I look forward to sharing full thoughts and a review very soon.

I'm not sure the blurb did this book a favour, the book in the blurb sounds very different from the book I've just read. It's hard to get into at the beginning and by the time you get your head around what's going on it's finished and the acknowledgements are there. That said the parts I understood and "liked" (liked is the wrong word for this subject matter) made this a fever dream of a book. Which parts were real? Which were in Vita's mind? Was this her brain coping with her childhood trauma and her sister's death?

There's Nothing Wrong With Her has reiterated to me how much we need to talk about mental illness and believe people, especially women when they say they are in pain. It's summed up in a scene where Max tells Vita that his patients are "really sick" because their illness can be seen. It's a poignant yet intense read that I hope will start many conversations surrounding chronic illnesses and mental health.