Hello and happy Monday. I pride myself on being very organized with my book lists, but once in a while I discover that I’ve purchased the same book twice, in different formats. This happened with Extraordinary Means by Robin Schneider, and it ended up working out perfectly because I was halfway through the book on Kindle when I found the physical copy in my library.

This is one of those novels I kind of wish I’d read in the past so that I could’ve joined all the hype that I’m pretty sure surrounded it. It’s for sure one of those “sick reads,” like The Fault in Our Stars and all the others that were released during that time, but I think I enjoyed it even more and wasn’t too bothered by the trope because the author didn’t romanticize anything -quite the opposite, actually. Sadie and Lane, our main characters, met years ago at summer camp and reunite in a sanatorium for TB patients, only this is a strand that is treatment-resistant (and that doesn’t exist in the real life, at least at the time of publishing). I don’t know why, but I love stories set in either total institutions or places that are isolated from “the real world.”

Even though this story is heavy, it was easy to read, so I think it would be good for when you’re almost done with your vacation because you won’t be able to put it down. And like I said, it doesn’t romanticize illness, so it was not hard for me to move on from it after I was done. Of course, always check the trigger and content warnings and consider your own wellbeing before deciding to read this book.