REVIEW: Confessions of a Teenage Leper by Ashley Little

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary

Publisher: PenguinTeen

ISBN: 0735262616

Format: Hardback, E-Book

Release Date: 11th September 2018


Links: Goodreads, Amazon.com, Indigo,
B&N, Book Depository

Website


Rating: 8/10


Synopsis:

Abby Furlowe has plans. Big plans. She's hot, she's popular, she's a cheerleader and she's going to break out of her small Texas town and make it big. Fame and fortune, adoration and accolades. It'll all be hers.

But then she notices some spots on her skin. She writes them off as a rash, but things only get worse. She's tired all the time, her hands and feet are numb and her face starts to look like day-old pizza. By the time her seventeenth birthday rolls around, she's tried every cream and medication the doctors have thrown at her, but nothing works. When she falls doing a routine cheerleading stunt and slips into a coma, her mystery illness goes into overdrive and finally gets diagnosed: Hansen's Disease, aka leprosy.
Abby is sent to a facility to recover and deal with this new reality. Her many misdiagnoses mean that some permanent damage has been done, and all of her plans suddenly come tumbling down. If she can't even wear high heels anymore, what is the point of living? Cheerleading is out the window, and she might not even make it to prom. PROM!

But it's during this recovery that Abby has to learn to live with something even more difficult than Hansen's Disease. She's becoming aware of who she really was before and what her behavior was doing to others; now she's on the other side of the fence looking in, and she doesn't like what she sees. . .

Review:

**Thanks to PRH Canada for sending me a copy in return for my honest review**

This book follows a young girl who has everything she ever wanted. She's popular, a cheerleader and everyone wants to be friends with her. That is until she notices a small red spot on her leg which only gets worse. After many tests and trips to the doctor's she is eventually diagnosed with Hansen's Disease and no now one wants to be friends with her and she feels as if she has lost everything.

This book was a fabulous read which follows Abby and her journey through diagnoses and the feeling of losing what she loved. Abby doesn't know how to cope now that she is no longer popular. She feels a range of different emotions as she comes to realise that the people she thought were her friends weren't there for her as much as she thought. Abby wasn't a likeable person at the start of the book, but throughout the book she goes through a change. She becomes a much more likeable person as she comes to realise how horrible she had been to people.

I really enjoyed Abby's journey throughout the book. Ashley Little did a wonderful job at capturing the struggles of a 'teenage leper' and how people can change as a person. Abby, in particular, eventually comes to terms with her diagnoses and fights against being called a leper. Instead the stigma is fought against and instead 'Hansen's Disease Patient' is used. Abby also learns to not take anything for granted and doesn't let her diagnoses stop her from achieving her dreams.

Another character that I enjoyed was her brother, Dean. Abby and Dean often argue, just as any siblings do, but they come together during difficult times and I really enjoyed their relationship with one another. I think the storyline would have worked well without Dean's struggles but I think it also worked extremely well with it and added another struggle that people can perhaps relate to and understand a little better.

My main criticism of the book is just how spiteful Abby is at the beginning of the book. She throws insults and uses anorexic to describe her friend's eating habits. She also isn't the most supportive of her brother when he announces that he is bi-polar. Instead she throws out that he 'just can't make up his mind'. However, this was all part of Abby's development throughout the book and the realisation of how terrible she has been to people.

Ashley Little did a fantastic job at including as much detail as possible about Hansen's Disease. I now know a lot more about the disease than I had previously. It was really informative of the history and realities of living with Hansen's Disease. 

I really enjoyed this book. It has a wonderful storyline and a main character whose development throughout the book is fantastically written. It's a story of hardships, hope and conflict of a teenager and her life.