If you or someone you know, suffer from ME, another chronic illness or even just love a fantastical and funny yarn, than this book is for you. I finished this book yesterday and still feel warm and happy after taking a magical journey with 9yr old Louise and her Auntie Nettie who is teaching her niece all about being a witch in her unique, magically funny way, despite suffering from M.E.
I am a huge fan of Maria Mann's first book 'Verity Red's Diary: A Story of Surviving M.E.', so I was thrilled when I found out she had published another book. The author is a fellow sufferer of ME, and what I love about her stories is that even though the illness peer's out at you, it is the humour and magic of her writing that strikes you the most. This is a great gift for those who suffer from the illness, but also a fabulous treat for any reader.
'Verity Red's Diary' is one of those books that will always stay close to my heart. I will never forget the way it made me feel or the way it resonated so exactly with the way I was feeling.
At the time, I had been suffering from severe symptoms for over 4yrs and had only been given a diagnosis of ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) a year earlier. I had spent that year in denial; no way could I get ill! I would beat it the way I beat everything, so I had tried every treatment I could to get better without actually stopping to acknowledge that I had a serious chronic illness or accepting the changes I would have to make. I just wanted my life back and I was going to do everything in my power to get it back! Of course, all I succeeded in doing was getting increasingly ill. I was fed up; I was ill, depressed and almost totally socially isolated as I just couldn't handle trying to explain the inexplicable to anyone anymore. I needed to know that I was not going crazy, that there was at least one person out there in this big, crazy, scary, alien world who understood what I was enduring.
