Meghan O'Rourke describes her experiences with chronic autoimmune illness, exploring America's cultural attitude towards these often misunderstood diseases.

As the number of long COVID-19 cases rises, awareness of chronic illness is growing.

Autoimmune diseases usually affect sufferers for the rest of their lives. The causes of most chronic illnesses are unknown, and they remain incurable, with treatment usually only reducing symptoms mildly.

Meghan O'Rourke is an acclaimed author and poet. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and is the editor of The Yale Review.

In this book, O'Rourke clearly describes how she lost most of her thirties to a chronic illness that doctors struggled to diagnose, providing an insightful commentary on American society's attitudes toward chronic health issues.