Illness Fiction

Kiss Tomorrow Hello brings together the experiences and reflections of women as they embark on a new stage of life. The 25 stellar writers gathered here explore a wide range of concerns, including keeping love and sex alive, discovering family secrets, negotiating the demands of illness and infertility, letting children go, making peace with parents, and contemplating plastic surgery. The tales are true, the confessions candid, and the humor infectious.

Gracie Hollaman finally decides to follow the voices in her head. She leaves behind her family for the small African-American town of Rockrun to join Mama Toot and Mattie. Together, the three will learn to shed their pasts to begin life anew.

Geräusch von einem Abfluss. Zu hören sind hier unterschiedliche Abflüsse aus dem Bad, der Küche in der Dusche oder der Waschküche. Das Geräusch von einem Abfluss besticht durch seine monotone Atmosphäre und steht in einer Reihe mit der Abzugshaube, dem Fön, oder auch Ventilator. Schon seit Generationen unterstützt dabei das Abspielen von konstanten Alltagsgeräuschen die Kleinen - und damit auch ihre Eltern.

It’s morning at Meadow Brook Nursing Home. During the last 10 months, this has been my mother’s abode. Most days, I feel it is mine, too. Life, as I have known it, is a blur. Alzheimer’s has taken mother from herself, her family, and her friends. It has demanded a grit and grace in our everyday lives beyond human comprehension. I know that I must tell her story - which ultimately is my story, too - with hope that it may bring a degree of peace to the hearts of those who have walked, or will walk, the same road.

Maxine and Jonah meet in the canned goods aisle just as California is going into lockdown. Max’s part-time job as a personal grocery shopper is about to transform into a hellish gauntlet. Jonah’s preexisting anxiety is about to become an epic daily struggle. As Max and Jonah get to know each other through FaceTime dates, socially distanced playground hangs, and the escalating heartbreaks of the pandemic, they’re pushed apart by what they don’t share and pulled closer by what they do.

La vida de Matthew Corbin, un chico de doce años con trastorno obsesivo-compulsivo, transcurre en la más absoluta pulcritud e intimidad: su pánico a los gérmenes le obliga a vivir encerrado en su habitación. Convencido de que el mínimo trato con otras personas puede contagiarle alguna enfermedad, Matthew pasa los días mirando el mundo a través de la ventana.

Ollie and Moritz are two teenagers who will never meet. Each of them lives with a life-affecting illness. Contact with electricity sends Ollie into debilitating seizures while Moritz has a heart defect and is kept alive by an electronic pacemaker. If they did meet, Ollie would seize, but turning off the pacemaker would kill Moritz. Through an exchange of letters, the two boys develop a strong bond of friendship that becomes a lifeline during dark times.

All She wants is a normal life. Diagnosed with a rare and untreatable heart condition, Scarlet has come to terms with the fact that she's going to die. Literally of a broken heart. It could be tomorrow, or it could be next year. But the clock is ticking…All Scarlet asks is for a chance to attend high school - even if just for a week - a chance to be just like everyone else. But Scarlet can feel her heart beating out of control with each slammed locker and vicious taunt. Is this normal? Really? Yet there's more going on than she knows.

Die 16-jährige Hazel hat Krebs. Aber sie will auf gar keinen Fall bemitleidet werden und kann mit Selbsthilfegruppen nichts anfangen. Bis sie genau dort auf den intelligenten, gut aussehenden und umwerfend schlagfertigen Gus trifft. Der geht offensiv mit seiner Krankheit um. Hazel und Gus diskutieren Bücher, hören Musik, sehen Filme und verlieben sich ineinander - trotz ihrer Handicaps und ihrer Unerfahrenheit. Gemeinsam erfüllen sie Hazels großen Traum und fliegen nach Amsterdam.

Norah has agoraphobia and OCD. When groceries are left on the porch, she can't step out to get them. Struggling to snag the bags with a stick, she meets Luke. He's sweet and funny, and he just caught her fishing for groceries. Because of course he did. Norah can't leave the house, but can she let someone in? As their friendship grows deeper, Norah realizes Luke deserves a normal girl.

Erin Bailey's life changes forever the day her mom is diagnosed with breast cancer. It's always just been Erin and Mom, so living without her is not an option. Life takes another turn when the cancer is linked to a rare genetic mutation, and Erin must grapple with the decision of whether or not to have her own DNA tested. Her only outlets are flying lessons, where looking to the horizon calms her deepest fears, and her new friend Ashley, a girl she met in an online support group.

My lips are white. Sixteen-year-old Sep stares into the bathroom mirror. It’s not some weird lipstick (she never wears lipstick). Her lips are just - white. In a panic, she digs up an old lipstick and smears it on her colorless lips. But soon, more and more white spots begin to bloom, spreading their chalky tendrils across her olive brown skin. Does she have a disease? Is she turning into some kind of freak?

Althea Carter and Oliver McKinley have been best friends since they were six; she's the fist-fighting instigator to his peacemaker, the artist whose vision balances his scientific bent. Now, as their junior year of high school comes to a close, Althea has begun to want something more than just best-friendship. Oliver, for his part, simply wants life to go back to normal, but when he wakes up one morning with no memory of the past three weeks, he can't deny any longer that something is seriously wrong with him. And then Althea makes the worst bad decision ever, and her relationship with Oliver is shattered.

With a 50/50 shot at inheriting her family's genetic curse, Rose is skeptical about pursuing anything that presumes she'll live to be a healthy adult - including her dream career in ballet and the possibility of falling in love. But when she meets a boy from a similarly flawed genetic pool and gets an audition for a dance scholarship across the country, Rose begins to question her carefully laid rules.

An intensely powerful account of a teen, bullied for herport-wine stain, who must summon her personal strength to survive abduction andhorrific abuse at the hands of a deranged killer

Sixteen-year-old Sarah Meadows longs for "normal."Born with a port-wine stain covering half her face, she has beenplagued by stares, giggles, bullying, and disgust all her life. But when she's abducted onthe way home from school, Sarah is forced to uncover the courage she never knewshe had, become a hero rather than a victim, and learn to look beyond her faceto find the beauty and strength she has inside. It's that - or succumb to akiller.

Ava Lee has lost everything there is to lose: Her parents. Her best friend. Her home. Even her face. She doesn't need a mirror to know what she looks like - she can see her reflection in the eyes of everyone around her. But when Ava meets a fellow survivor named Piper, she begins to feel like maybe she doesn't have to face the nightmare alone. Sarcastic and blunt, Piper isn't afraid to push Ava out of her comfort zone. Piper introduces Ava to Asad, a boy who loves theater just as much as she does, and slowly, Ava tries to create a life again. Yet Piper is fighting her own battle.

Will Daughtry is a late bloomer - at least, that's what everyone tells him. On his 16th birthday, Will is just shy of five feet, and he is bitterly resigned to being tiny forever. His only comforts are his best friend and stepbrother, Drew (six-foot-three), and their pal Monica (five-foot-10), the girl Will's been quietly pining for since fifth grade. Everyone else literally overlooks him. But with them, he feels whole. That is, until things take an unexpected turn, and he realizes he's really and truly on his own. That's when he starts to grow. And grow fast. Astonishingly fast.

Hard-charging and irrepressible 18-year-old Amelia Linehan could see a roller-derby opponent a mile away - and that’s while crouched down, bent over skates, and zooming around a track at the speed of light. What she couldn’t see coming, however, was the flare-up of the rare liver disorder with which she was born. But now, it’s the only thing she - and everyone around her - can think about.

Erin Reardon gets her first kiss from Jim Morrison and loses her virginity to David Bowie. When she flunks out of college, Bruce Springsteen comforts her, and Elvis Costello breaks her heart in Europe. So what happens when she finally meets a rock star in the flesh?

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