Ill systems

The year 2023 is arguably not the best time to recommend a book about illness. More than three years after Covid-19 infections first made the headlines, many people are experiencing what the WHO has described as 'pandemic fatigue' - the feeling of having had enough of all the talk about illness. 1 Yet, at the same time, there may be no better moment to read Alice Hattrick's Ill Feelings , in which the author describes their daily struggle with chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), and what it means to be clinically exhausted in a society that expects you to 'function' at all times - not least because the book speaks to and of people who have no choice but to deal with illness every day of their life, and for whom going back to 'normal' pre-Covid life is not an option.